


string theory

by diwata



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Space, Anthology, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23123170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diwata/pseuds/diwata
Summary: There are eleven dimensions in the multi-verse. Sasuke and Sakura find each other in each one. (AU Anthology)V: heart of glassThe aftermath of the war brings many things to Konoha; Sakura copes poorly. (1970s AU)“He’s a war hero, now. So are you. It’s nice to have you home, Sasuke-kun. Welcome.”“Things are different now. But -- I’m home, Sakura.”
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 75
Kudos: 90





	1. ashes of time

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to throw it back to the 2010s and turn this work into an AU anthology. As per the new title, I intend to write ten different universes (canon verse counts as one universe — see i follow rivers for canon-verse fic). Some pieces might be continued, some may read as one-shots. Each chapter is its own universe unless labeled as a continuation, feel free to not read in order or at all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At their closest, they were mere millimeters apart. Eight hours later, she was in love with him. — Sasuke and Sakura in space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly, truly do not know what this is. Think Cowboy Bebop meets a WKW film, but in fic. Sakura!centric because it's her birthday [month].

**konoha**

“Could I interest you in a hot bowl of ramen, sweetheart?” a nasal voice hollers behind her, snapping Sakura out of her reverie. The sight of her mentor’s fingers clasped around her fist melts away, replaced with the grey slush on the sidewalk. The heat inside her vanishes with the image of Tsunade-shishou; Sakura shivers as the winter wind pierces through her light fleece.

Annoyed at the nickname, but in need, Sakura says, “Yes, please.” The young man working the stall mumbles a price while Sakura scrambles to find exact change.

“Hey, you’re a pretty woman, you from here?” the worker asks, sizing her up. Sakura rolls her eyes, but nods as she slides into her seat. “Nice. It’s the best city to be in, after all,” he continues, “the City of Dreams, right?”

Tsunade-shishou lies still in her hospital bed. For a minute, Sakura is quiet. “Something like that,” she replies. She leans her cheek against the palm of her hand, listening to the loud clamoring of her server in the kitchen.

He scoops the boiling broth into her bowl with enthusiasm. “You got a man waiting for you at home?” He pushes the bowl towards her, blue eyes sparkling. He smiles like a fox, the shallow markings on his face like whiskers. Sakura can’t help but smile back. 

“Itadakimasu,” she says politely, bowing her head to the bowl so the steam rises up to warm her face. She hums her response as she breaks her chopsticks against the counter. The wood splinters unevenly. “You kind of look familiar,” Sakura remarks, squinting at the whiskers again.

“Plenty of souls in the City of Dreams,” the blond says, his expression unchanged.

Sakura shrugs, unconvinced. She’s about certain that if she turns the corner, she’ll see a bounty on a wanted sign for a certain fox Jinchuriki. But she figures if she knew anything about her past, she’d have secrets to hide, too. “It was the City of Dreams fifty years ago,” she says, words falling from the corner of her mouth. “Now, it’s just Konoha.”

* * *

**omens**

The midnight of his cape spills over the stool beside him as he leans forward, carefully sliding her sunglasses down the bridge of his tall nose to examine the clientele in front of him. Two couples, one young, one old. Two criminals, one young, one old. They pack into the small, private room like sardines. Mostly, they all have the same story - they’re running from something, from the city, from the law, from themselves. Sometimes, they’re in love. Other times, their motives are more insidious - but these are the people who pay, the people who keep the business running. Sasuke scrutinizes the six all with the same severity. The old couple blanches under the weight of his gaze. “What do you want?” he questions clinically, eyeing their matching gold bands.

“Our daughter,” the man replies. “She’s _gifted_ \-- they said -- they -- they’re going to take her, put her in some home.” Sasuke hears the desperation in the tremor of his voice. His wife’s eyes turn glassy.

“The Council gave us two weeks,” she says, bowing her head. “Shimura-sama said I wasn’t fit to raise my own daughter.”

“Are you sure?” Sasuke asks, though he already knows the answer. His clients erupt into noisy affirmation. The older woman dissolves into tears. Sasuke feels an odd phantom pain in her chest, a tugging at his heartstrings. Slowly, he reaches out his gloved palm. “Give me your passports.” They scurry away after handing him the documents and their deposits.

Sasuke doesn’t believe in luck. Perhaps he believes in blood curses and family lineage, but he doesn’t believe in much else. But it was the fourth of the month and the files he’d been relying on for the trade had gone missing, likely from a logistical transportation error by one of the handymen, and he’d heard news of the cops scourging the area tonight for one of their random searches. Where most would call it bad luck, Sasuke sees a sinister omen. If he doesn’t find those men, he’s in trouble. 

The teahouse at the border of Oto and Konoha is recluse, its silken screens tattered and worn from misuse and abandonment over the years. Sasuke likes to go there to enjoy a quiet meal on days like these. Sometimes, he searches for messages from his ancestors in his tea leaves. “Have you seen this woman?” Sasuke asks the silver-haired man serving him. He presents a faded picture of a woman with blue hair and copper eyes. A paper flower sits above her ear. “She has a kid.”

The silver-haired man shakes his head. “Why the raincoat?” he questions instead. Sunlight filters through the thin fabric of the screen door.

“I think it will rain,” the Uchiha replies, dry as the deserts of Suna. He adjusts the sunglasses on his face. “Somehow, I’ve started being very cautious wearing both. You never know when it’ll rain and when it’ll be sunny.” The young man stares at the raven sitting at the bottom of his cup.

“I see,” his waiter says, ducking into the back room with his customers’ plates balanced across his forearm. 

Sasuke doesn’t hear the whispers in the corridor on his way out. He’s too preoccupied with the figure that’s been trailing him for a long city block, slipping in and out the shadows inconspicuously. The figure, an old client, aims for his back, but hits his arm instead. But Sasuke is a trained killer, and when his eyes flash red, he leaves the man behind in an alleyway with a gunshot to the chest. Calculating the time it will take the cops to find the body, he hoists himself up a rusted metal gate. He knows he has to find Naruto.

* * *

**your name**

Sakura’s first patient was a very pregnant woman in her late forties. She had wiry blonde hair and a stern-set mouth that made something in Sakura stir in recognition. Her husband’s easygoing nature complemented the woman’s rigid propriety. When she left the operating room that day with the wife’s body dead on the table and the premature baby in an incubator, he begged Sakura for help. Three years later, each case seems to blur into the next. She knows her patients by medical procedure, not by name. It was the profundity of suffering; they are all unlucky in life sometime. Whenever Sakura is, she goes jogging. “The body loses water when you jog,” Tsunade had told her after the husband left, “so you don’t cry as easily.” She hears these words as she makes steady footfalls against the concrete.

Tsunade doesn’t live to see the turn of the decade, so Sakura decides that when it turns the decade, she’ll let go. At the grocery, she handpicks a dozen apples, bruised and marred by maltreatment and time. “Let me get you something less damaged,” the shopkeeper offers, bowing apologetically. “This fruit isn’t good anymore, or it won’t be by the end of tomorrow.”

“No, no,” Sakura says, smiling a little. “These are fine.”

“You’ll get sick,” the shopkeeper insists.

“No use in throwing food away, hm?” she replies.

“If you like rotten things, take it -- on the house,” he says, tying an angry knot at the top of her plastic bag.

She eats half of the apples early that night, thankful for the free dinner and free breakfast. Her thumb brushes a soft patch of flesh. “Everything goes rotten, someday,” Sakura says to the stray cat who sometimes pokes his head through the window of her basement apartment. “Is there anything on this Moon which doesn’t expire?” The cat sniffs the browning fruit before turning its nose away. Sakura feels the familiar pang of hunger and sighs. Lamenting the cost of living, she slips on her sneakers to grab a cheap dinner elsewhere.

“Hey, you,” Whiskers greets her as she throws her legs over the high seat. “Miso?”

Sakura nods. “Sakura,” she supplies, eyeing the cloaked man Whiskers was talking to just seconds before she arrived, “Haruno Sakura.”

“Haru-no Sakura,” Whiskers says, “aren’t you a little off-season?” The cloaked man shifts, the tilt of his mouth something like laughter. “What is that, a fake name?”

“It’s my only name,” Sakura clips. She likes to believe it is her real name; it’s the one she had woken up with, anyway. Sakura, for the pink of her hair; Haruno, for the green of her eyes, for the spring she was born into. Her eyes sweep over the uncomfortable posture of the man beside her, hunched over with his fists clenched. “Are you okay?” she asks him, leaning over. She notices the beads of perspiration forming on his pale skin. More importantly, she notices the red bleeding through his cloak. He ignores her, focusing very intently on his food.

“Hey, Sakura-chan, don’t bother the other customers,” her server scolds, pushing Sakura’s order towards her.

“I will bother the other customers because I am a doctor and this one happens to be bleeding out on your stool,” she says, heated. “Hello, sir, are you okay?” Sakura presses again, this time more assertively.

“Not in a talking mood,” the man manages, though his lips barely move.

“Okay,” the young doctor begins slowly, as if talking to a child, “do you know the first rule of combat?”

“Excuse me?” he barks at her before moving out of the way. He twitches, imperceptibly slowed by his injury.

“Shoot first,” Sakura states, brandishing a handgun and firing it at the two police officers who had suddenly appeared, lunging for the stranger. She ducks under his arm to support him before making a run towards her apartment in the commotion.

The cloaked man snorts. “Sakura, huh?” he questions. “You have a bounty on your head, Senju Sakura?” They amble through the dimly lit path to the back exit of her apartment complex.

“Haruno,” Sakura corrects, pushing the heavy, red door to her studio open. “It’s my only name.”

* * *

**happier truth**

“Sorry, I only have booze,” Sakura says, “none of the fancy stuff.”

“For the wound?” he asks, draped across the cracked leather seat of her secondhand couch. The air around them is heavy with humidity and something else. Sasuke watches the pink-haired woman tie her hair back and snap her latex gloves on.

“For the pain,” she clarifies, and he shakes his head. “You’re sure? Just grab onto this stress ball, or something.” Sakura swabs the wound clean with iodine and Sasuke hisses. “You can bite down on my t-shirt, too.” Stubbornly, he refuses once more. “So, are you going to tell me how this happened?” She begins her incision and locates the bullet. “It’s not deep, this should be quick.”

Sasuke thinks of his former client, cold in a dumpster. “I’ve been running all day.” 

Sakura raises her forceps and he braces himself for the worst. Sakura peeks up at him for a split second, face hidden by her surgical mask. “Hurting people?”

He blanches as she recovers the bullet and drops it onto the towel beside her. “Helping people.”

The corners of her eyes wrinkle. “The line blurs, sometimes,” she agrees. The silver needle in her hands glints as she expertly sews his skin back together.

“Where’s Tsunade?” Sasuke asks, and Sakura’s quick fingers slow their pace.

“Dead,” Sakura struggles with this news, her brow furrowing in distress, “She was in a coma for a year. I decided to pull the plug, couldn’t handle her hospital bills anymore.”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow. Tsunade is many things, but dead isn’t one of them. “Did you see the body?”

“What do you mean? Of course I did, I’d visit everyday.”

“At the funeral.”

“Couldn’t afford one.” Sasuke looks at the medic’s face as she mentally mulls over the possibility, her expression settling on a look of betrayal. “I know Tsunade-shishou. There’s no way she’s alive, she wouldn’t abandon me like this.” But still, Sakura hesitates, and that much tells Sasuke she’s caught on to the game they are all playing.

“Knowing a person doesn’t mean they’ll do right by you. They’ll change,” Sasuke tells her, because he feels like it’s important for this woman to know.

She blinks away the hesitation and continues his stitches. “Yes, they might like apple today and something else tomorrow,” Sakura agrees again. “But what if there were two truths, one where they died nobly with love for them in their chest,” she starts the final stitch, “and another, where they adopt a ghost girl and then leave her for dead with a lifetime of debt. Wouldn’t you choose the happier one?”

“We don’t choose our truth, Sakura,” he states as she closes up. “But you already know that.” He smirks at the steel in her gaze. He pulls down her surgical mask and she stares up at him, bewildered. “I’m Sasuke,” he introduces himself brusquely, extending only his first name and nothing else. 

She looks away, embarrassed, and tells him he can sleep on the couch. “Sasuke-kun,” she tries, and he frowns at the term of endearment. “You can rest here before you go, Sasuke-kun.”

Exhausted, he leans backwards into the cushion and sighs. “Thank you,” Sasuke tells her, and wonders what the air is so heavy with -- probably with her perfume, and other things he can’t bother to pay attention to, until his brother is buried in a nameless grave in the soil beneath them. But still, he leans backwards into the cushion and tilts his head, very slightly, towards her. And Sasuke stays, just for the night.

* * *

**promise**

At their closest, they were mere millimeters apart. Eight hours later, she was in love with him. And then he was gone, though she’d expected that, it didn’t lessen the blow. In late March, Sakura finds herself running down the same street, trying to recreate their critical moment.

“Yo, Sakura-chan!” a warm voice calls, and she grins at him in return.

“Hi there,” she says, approaching the ramen shop. “I have something for you.”

“For me?” Whiskers exclaims, pressing both of his palms to the counter.

“Well, sort of,” Sakura teases, “more for your better looking friend, though.” She slides a letter towards him.

“That’s funny,” Whiskers says, laughing at a private joke, “the bastard left something for you.” He hands her an unassuming white envelope with a single piece of paper in it. “He says sorry.” Whiskers scratches the back of his head. “And I guess I’m sorry, too.”

“Leaving me, huh?” she jokes, hands on her hips mock-threateningly.

“Haha,” is the weak response her server coughs out.

“Oh,” Sakura says, and it’s all she can say.

“There’s a bounty,” Whiskers says, though he’s at his limit of what he can disclose in public, “on Earth. A big one for him.”

Sakura throws her arms around his neck and pulls him close. “You better come back safe, Naruto,” she whispers into his ear. “Both of you. Bring Sasuke-kun home safe.”

“Of course, Sakura-chan,” he says, holding her close to his chest. “It’s the promise of a lifetime.”

* * *

**odyssey**

Old Konoha is a shell of what it used to be. Its infrastructure had been cannibalized, and much of it had turned into an interplanetary garbage dump. Where the thick trunks of giant trees once grew are now landfills of waste. Sakura swims through a sea of junk ship parts and broken television screens before she gets where she needs to be.

When humans first built a city on the moon, they called it the City of Dreams. They’d chartered a small spaceship to fly from Old Konoha to the City. The seats were by lottery, but not really, and the world’s wealthiest bought their way onto the deck. Among the crowd of fur coats and evening gowns, a small slip of a girl can be seen smiling from ear to ear. Sakura wouldn’t have recognized her, if it weren’t for her peculiar coloring. The newspaper clipping is faded from age, yellowing at the corners. It tells a story about a tragic accident of a space vessel, and a lone survivor: a teenager, an honors student. It continues on about the future of cryogenic technology and the ethics of immortality. There are no follow-up articles, no news parades when the girl from yesterday wakes from her eternal sleep. There was only Tsunade-shishou and her name, Haruno Sakura.

For the first time, Sakura remembers. She stands on top of a grass hill and remembers the street names; the name of her high school; the lake where she and her friends would take off their shoes and giggle about the class president. Recalling the laughter of young schoolgirls, a new voice joins in. “Hi, I think it’s your turn to play with me,” the new girl says, her white-blond hair pinned out of her face. The top of her head only reaches Sakura’s elbow, and the woman tries very hard not to tower over the child.

“It’s rude to go up to strangers, Inoko-chan,” an elderly woman with hair like starlight ambles over, the girl’s doll in her hands. She startles at the sight of the woman standing upright. “Sakura?”

“Ino?” Sakura asks.

Ino hands the doll over and places each of her hands on Sakura’s shoulders. “My, my,” her former best friend says, “you certainly grew into your forehead, didn’t you?”

Sakura scowls. “Your tongue _certainly_ didn’t dull with old age, unfortunately,” she bickers back. They glare at each other before dissolving into laughter. The two old friends trail behind Ino’s granddaughter as Ino guides them to her old family estate.

“They told us you were good as dead,” Ino remarks casually as Inoko rips dandelions from the ground for dinner, as if commenting on the weather, not the reappearance of a friend that was lost for half a century. “But I never believed them,” she says, and Sakura studies the lines on her face. Ino reaches for her hand. 

“I always thought we’d grow old together,” Sakura admits.

“I always hoped,” Ino laments, a soft smile on her face. “My husband is expecting us back,” the elder woman says, tapping her index finger against the back of Sakura’s hand before letting go. “It was nice seeing you, Forehead-chan.”

Inoko runs up to Sakura and wraps her arms around her legs. “Bye, Sakura-obasan!” The young girl smiles brightly before running in the opposite direction.

“Bye, Inoko-chan,” Sakura yells after her. “It was nice seeing you, Pig.” She watches their retreating backs with something in her mouth that tastes like regret. It lingers as she climbs the winding steps to her childhood home.

Like the rest of Old Konoha, not much remains of the Haruno household. There’s no door to open, only one wall still standing. Sakura fills the gaps with memory as she walks through the structure; in the kitchen, she would sit at the table with her parents and eat a meal made by her mother; in the parlor, she would carve wooden animals with her father; and in her bedroom, Ino would lean over her face, and teach her how to apply make-up -- and all sorts of other things. Her bed is gone now, so she lies down on the floor where it used to be.

Memories, Sakura discovers, can never go rotten. And if they do, she thinks, may they last ten thousand years so she can hold onto them for as long as possible.

* * *

**city of dreams**

The ramen stand seems like a different place from behind the counter. Sasuke watches with impressed disgust as Naruto inhales his third bowl of tonkotsu. The loud blond slams the plastic against the tabletop and sighs his contentment. In a particularly sour mood, Sasuke asks, “Who raised you?”

“You know the answer to that,” Naruto warns. “Don’t go picking fights just because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” But Sasuke senses Naruto will try to get a punch in the minute they’re out of public eye in retaliation. “Jeez, asshole has nothing left to do with his life so he decides to pick fights for no reason.”

“I accomplished my life goal,” he retorts defensively.

“And now you run a ramen stand with your best friend, congratulations,” the blond says.

“Best friend?” Sasuke scoffs. “Don’t be so familiar.”

“Listen, Bastard, I followed you to the shithole that is Earth, you cannot pull that--”

“One miso,” a playful voice cuts through. And he knows before he turns that it’s Sakura; it’s Sakura, of course, but her hair hangs at her shoulders instead of her waist now, and her eyes have a sharper edge to them.

“Ah, it’s Sakura,” Sasuke says, his lips slanting upward in a semblance of a smile.

“Sasuke-kun,” she replies, nodding her head at him.

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto greets enthusiastically, pulling her into a bear hug. When he lets go, Sakura almost loses her balance, but Sasuke grabs her wrist to steady her. 

“Did you find your truth?” the Uchiha asks.

“I remember now,” Sakura tells him, “it wasn’t a matter of finding, just remembering.” She holds up a white envelope and a newspaper clipping with today’s date written on it. “The thing is,” Sakura says, “I don’t want the story to end.” Naruto stares blankly at her. 

Sasuke chuckles. “None of us do,” he concurs.

She waves the paper at him again. “Will this get me anywhere?” Sakura asks.

“Where do you want to go?” Inexplicably, he taps the center of her forehead with his index finger. 

Sakura blushes at him through the steam of her ramen bowl. “I’ll go wherever you take me,” she confesses, not quite meeting his gaze.

“Are you guys done yet?” Naruto whines from the corner of the counter. Sasuke opens his mouth to snarl an insult; Sakura pushes his barstool. They smile at each other as the fox topples over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed this, because I enjoyed writing it. Also hope you peeped the InoSaku, because yes it is there and yes it was on purpose. This might be a prelude to a 10-chapter fic I've been ruminating on for a while, but really it's more me trying to get my Naruto Space!AU craving out of the way. I have a lot of notes that I took on this universe, so let me know if it's something you want to see more of. Thanks for reading!


	2. portal paradox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke and Sakura never a stood a chance. (Portal AU ft. mad scientist Sakura)
> 
> “It’s about… well, would Sasuke-kun rather live a just life or a happy life?”  
> “What is the merit in living happily without justice?”
> 
> She smiles sadly. “So you understand, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a scene below where they’re speaking in code throughout. You can read through the ending notes and see if you figured it out!

The sight of Naruto’s orange jumpsuit is a familiar one, but it doesn’t aggravate Sasuke any less. “They said standard uniform, idiot,” Sasuke sighs, tapping his foot impatiently.

Sakura’s wrath fills the room. “You do this every time, Naruto!” she scolds, temper flaring, “You can’t just wear your own uniform because you don’t like the color green, or whatever nonsensical bullshit reasoning goes on in that mind of yours.”

The blond turns to their squad mate, waving his arms in the air animatedly. “Of course I like the color green, Sakura-chan!” He walks closer to her with his hands folded behind his head. “That’s the color of your eyes!” Sasuke sighs again, rolling his eyes. He smirks when he hears the imminent slap.

“Flattery won’t work,” comes the woman’s stern voice. “Sasuke-kun, make sure he gets changed.”

“I’m not his keeper,” he snaps, glancing at the watch on his wrist.

“Neither am I,” Sakura bites back, “but here I am, bringing clothing for him like a common housewife.”

Naruto ducks behind a tall shelf, stripping down. “Idiot,” Sasuke calls him as his partner zips up into the green utility suit, pulling the standard olive vest over and flashing a bright grin at Sakura as he stands up.

“I’m telling Hinata,” Sakura threatens, making her way to the two of them with a bungee cord in hand. Naruto has the gall to look sheepish as the scientist hooks them both in. “Okay, this portal is rather unstable. The chart says we can only hold it open for thirty minutes,” she says, securing their belts with a satisfying click. “At 0900 I want both of you to make your way up. Understood?”

After a terse nod on Sasuke’s part, their feet make contact with soft, muddy ground. Blinking madly, Sasuke reaches for his weapon out of habit. This world is covered in palpable darkness, one that weighs down on him uncomfortably. “I can’t see shit,” he tells Naruto, whose flashlight cuts through the abyss. “The Sharingan won’t be able to record any of this.”

“Well, let me find a light switch then, bastard,” the blond gripes. He leans down, pressing his ear to the earth. “Let’s find a way out. Water is north.”

They are in a cavern, Sasuke observes. Strange glowing stalagmites decorate the ceiling and floors as they draw closer north, a crystallized white residue powdering the walls around them. Naruto’s flashlight flickers for a moment, then clamors to the floor. “Creepy,” the blond says, because Naruto is not one to fumble with equipment, nor is the flashlight, designed by Konoha engineers, prone to die out on an important mission.

Sasuke feels the change before he knows it’s coming. “Shut up, wait,” he warns, turning to Naruto. Only the blue light from the stalagmites illuminate the space as he watches the glint of a sword run through his best friend’s stomach.

The voice he hears next is too familiar. “So you’ve finally found me, little brother,” it taunts him. Sasuke tries to aim at a shadow, but the force throws him against a wall. His eyes roll back in his head. As he hazily regains consciousness, he hears the voice taunt him again. “Weak,” the voice calls him. “You lack power, chakra.” Sasuke frantically pulls at the bungee cord with his remaining energy, hoping the signal reaches the laboratory. “And in the end, it will destroy you.”

* * *

Sakura doesn’t like to remember the moment Kakashi goes to recover them, the blood spilling from both of them staining white tile. Sitting in the hospital, the memory resurfaces as Sakura studies the marble floor. The scientist recalls: an hour after Sakura had injected them with a potent healing serum and swept them away to the hospital, Danzo appeared. “It’s time to begin the Trials,” the Hokage had told Kakashi, studying the gaping hole in Naruto’s stomach with a cold gleam in his eye. Sakura wasn’t supposed to hear, but she knew enough from what Tsunade-shishou had disclosed to her before the Danzo regime: Naruto would receive the Kyuubi. A soldier appeared to move Naruto’s bed, transporting him to a remote wing of the hospital.

Sakura sits beside Sasuke’s cot, cutting apples as she mulls over the events of the past three days. She rises at a timid knock on the hospital door. “Hinata-chan,” she greets warmly, noting the worry marking the woman’s face. Sakura steps inside, taking her seat. 

Hinata closes the door behind them, balancing the large bouquet she had brought with her on her hip. “I h-heard Naruto-kun was in the h-hospital,” the Hyuuga heiress says meekly, her long dark hair tied behind her in a low ponytail.

“They transferred him recently,” Sakura says. “I’m sorry. The apples are for Sasuke-kun, but...” The woman looks at Sasuke’s face and then at the bright yellow sunflowers Hinata had brought with her, that brighten the gloomy hospital room. She holds an unpeeled fruit out for the other woman to take.

Hinata watches Sakura’s loving eyes sweep over Sasuke knowingly; as two women in love, their hearts know each other. “S-Sakura-chan,” she asks, “what’s happening?”

The scientist resumes peeling a red apple for her squadmate. “You mustn't tell anyone,” she whispers, her pale fingers cutting the skin off with precision. So focused on the apple, Sakura doesn’t see Sasuke’s eyes open and close. “There’s an electromagnetic field around the Door,” she says, “but the portal teams are working to find a way around it.”

“They taught us that the Door was locked in the Academy,” replies Hinata, fumbling with the ends of her sleeves.

“The lock is the field,” Sakura explains, slicing the naked apple in half. “And to remove the field, the government needs the force of twelve chakra beasts.” She puts the knife down, directing the weight of her gaze to the heiress. “Do you understand?”

“N-Naruto-kun told me h-he would become a vessel,” Hinata says. She holds the large bouquet up to her face. “So soon? All twelve beasts?”

“So they say,” is Sakura’s non-answer. Resuming her preparations, she cuts out the apple seeds hiding in the fruit’s flesh. “The chakra beast should accelerate his healing.” She sets the glass plate on Sasuke’s bedside table. “Naruto will be fine,” Sakura says louder, her voice taking a brighter cadence. “Let me page Kakashi-sensei for you, I’m sure he can bring those flowers over.”

“No, n-no, y-you d-don’t h-have to,” Hinata stutters, glowing red, “I’ll l-leave t-them at the f-front d-desk.” Taking a moment to regain her composure, the heiress bows deeply. “You h-have my g-gratitude, Sakura-chan,” the woman speaks gently. “Please a-accept m-my apologies for the i-intrusion.” She nods at the lone patient.

Sakura’s cheeks flush the color of her hair. She studies the gentle rise and fall of her comrade’s chest with relief. “You’re not intruding,” she insists, “I mean, there’s nothing to intrude upon. Thank you for visiting, I’ll call you if I hear about Naruto’s condition.”

Coy and clever, Hinata smiles at the scientist. “I hope Sasuke-kun wakes soon,” she tells Sakura, then exits the room with grace. And he does, almost the moment the Hyuuga is out the door.

Her body moves before her mind can process what’s happening. With her arms thrown hastily around his neck, Sakura’s cheek hovers next to Sasuke’s. Sakura knows he can feel the tremor of her torso as she cries and cries. Sasuke turns his head towards her. When he speaks, his warm breath tickles her face. “I worried you,” Sasuke states, voice level. Only Sakura’s practiced ears can discern the quiet rage underneath.

* * *

The vials of distilled chakra glow a dull blue under the ultraviolet light of the laboratory hood. Sakura disposes of the pipette tip in the biohazard bin before she prepares the vials for clinical trial. She saves one vial of the new vaccine sample, assembling a slide with two drops of the serum. On the screen of the digital microscope, she watches the cells swell healthily, rejuvenated, before bursting. Disheartened, she heads back to her bench. She disposes of the failures, capping the vial and labeling it with an attempt number.

Standing at her bench, Sakura studies the charts of her comatose patients. Their vitals were stable until they were injected with beast chakra. After two years, she and Tsunade-shishou were on their third trial. The data was unpromising, and Sakura suspected if the study weren’t Tsunade-shishou’s, and if it weren’t about chakra, it would have been defunded by now. Every time a patient marginally improved, their progress would spike and they would pass away not long after. The infectious chakra would restore the neural pathways, then rapidly destroy native cells in the central nervous system. It moved like a virus. Sakura sighs, wondering how many comatose patients must have died by her hand, the guilt stirring doubt in the recesses of her consciousness. 

But what if, she considers, they used endogenous chakra? Sakura scribbles the hypothesis in the margins of her data book. The door to the laboratory suddenly opens, and she startles at the sound. Looking up, Sakura recognizes the somber figure that approaches her. “Sasuke-kun!” she exclaims, flippantly closing her book. “Is there something wrong? Are you injured?”

He reclines in her chair, adjusting the gears to accommodate his long legs. “No, nothing’s wrong,” Sasuke tells her. He thumbs through one of her protocol notebooks absentmindedly, and she’s thankful she has her notebook of results in hand instead. “You’ve been spending a lot of time down here,” he remarks, studying Sakura’s neat penmanship along the axes of an old graph.

“Ah, sorry,” Sakura says, bowing her head. “My workload has doubled since Tsunade-shishou’s accident. Our team’s not taking missions now, so—”

“Accident,” Sasuke repeats dryly. He picks up the brown paper bag on her desk and shoves it in her direction. “Here, you didn’t eat,” he says.

“No food allowed in the lab, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura says, but takes the bag anyway. “But thank you for looking after me.”

“It’s Thursday,” he replies, still in her seat.

“Huh,” she intones, peeling off her gloves and disposing of them in the biohazard bin, then recognizing the pattern on the bag, “I’m so sorry, Sasuke-kun, I thought — I thought…”

“You thought what?” Sasuke asks, looking sober as ever, but his tone is light, playful.

“I thought our squad dinner was cancelled, with Naruto being out of commission,” Sakura lies through her teeth. Met with Sasuke’s skeptical glance, Sakura almost folds.

“And you don’t eat dinner on Thursdays otherwise?” her squadmate chastises. His gaze is trained on her face.

Her stomach growls at the inopportune time, and she shakes her head sheepishly. “Well,” Sakura says, then laughs, embarrassed.

“Danzo’s been here,” Sasuke remarks, “I saw the visitor logs.”

She blinks at him. “You have the authorization to do that?”

“I had to sign in. I recognized his name before mine.” Sasuke chooses a binder from Sakura’s shelf to occupy himself with next. “Any floor below B-L10 requires it without a weekly pass.”

“That’s odd,” Sakura says, remembering the vials. “Hokage-sama hasn’t spoken with me.”

“I thought he might have,” Sasuke replies. “It seems like Danzo has you running experiments for him, since Tsunade—”

“No,” she denies his accusation. “Tsunade-shishou was never good about recording her wealth of knowledge,” Sakura laments, “so I have to reinvent the wheel now. This is uncharted territory.”

Sasuke peers up at her, a smirk playing at his lips. “You have one of the brightest minds of our generation, Sakura,” he reminds her, as if reciting an objective fact. “Are you going to waste it down here?”

Sakura cringes. She had placed at the top of her class academically, but her failure in the practical component in the Academy’s final exam delegated her to the support role of scientist. Sakura would never be a portal hopper, yet she would come to be Tsunade’s apprentice; and all she had to show for it, it seemed, was three failed clinical trials, with countless lives lost. “It’s not about waste, Sasuke-kun,” she corrects him. “It’s about… well, would Sasuke-kun rather live a just life or a happy life?”

His fingertips trace a colorful diagram Sakura had created for her first clinical trial’s protocol. “What is the merit in living happily without justice?”

She smiles sadly. “So you understand, then.”

Sasuke glances at her out of the corner of his eye, suspicious. “I won’t forgive anyone who stands in my way, Sakura.” He turns to look at the portrait of their team, fresh out of the Academy. “Even you.”

Even you? Sakura wonders at his cryptic words. It seems they are both keeping secrets from each other, and it makes her uneasy. She clutches the food, which has long grown cold; a peace offering. 

“Tamatebako,” Sasuke reads out loud, after minutes of awkward silence. (1)

“Tsunade-shishou and I had some humor in naming these things,” Sakura recounts. “We watched our patients age in their sleep, and it reminded us of that lonely man.”

“Lonely?” Sasuke’s eyes flicker towards her with curiosity.

“He opened the box because he was all alone,” the scientist says. “All his loved ones had perished, so he peered into the box. The white smoke returned his age to him.”

“And your patients?” he inquires, scanning a sketch of chakra pathways throughout the human body.

“We keep injecting new cells into them, it’s proven ineffective,” she lies again. “But sometimes I’m jealous of them.” Sasuke looks at her, prompting her to elaborate. “Sometimes I think it must be comforting to live in an endless dream.” Tsunade-shishou looks so calm in her hospital bed, and so peaceful. “But what becomes of someone if they wake from an endless dream?” Sakura’s grip tightens on her data book. “They wither away.”

Sasuke contemplates her words before shutting the binder and returning it to its place. “Come on,” he says, “I’ll walk you home. We can eat there.” 

On the way home, Sasuke’s pace slows so they walk beside each other. Her left shoulder bumps his bicep as she adjusts the straps of her backpack. “Excuse me,” she says.

“We’ve had dinner alone before,” Sasuke grumbles, apparently still peeved at her absence at Ichiraku.

“Oh, I know,” Sakura says, apologetic. “It would just feel — like, like a…” Like a date, she wants to continue, but doesn’t. She doesn’t want to make either of them more uncomfortable than they already are whenever they approximate the topic.

Her companion casually plucks the spare key from beneath her weeping fig tree. Sasuke opens the door to her apartment and shrugs. “You should really get your locks changed.”

* * *

The new voice in his head is aggressive and sardonic. It tells him the story of his birth, how a proton had collapsed, freeing the voice from its vessel and destroying Konoha. What disturbs Naruto the most is how the voice — or entity — relishes bloodshed and violence. But the entity is intelligent, and Naruto admits, more privy to the government than he might be. This is how he finds himself at Hinata’s doorstep after escaping the remote hospital unit, Danzou’s special agents hot on his trail.

“N-Naruto-kun?” Hinata asks, casting a glance over his flimsy hospital gown.

“Let’s run away together,” he declares.

“Where?” The dark-haired beauty toes on her slippers to greet him fully.

The Kyuubi and Naruto answer in the same breath: “Below.” She follows him without question.

* * *

On Tuesday, Sasuke wrestles his way through an aggressive crowd of protestors outside of the testing facilities. “The time of atonement is coming,” the leader announces on his megaphone. “Chakra is our new God!” They burn an effigy of Danzo and chant their absolution.

He finds Sakura easily in the cafeteria; for this, he will always be grateful for the rose of her hair. “This city is saturated, like an overripe fruit,” Sasuke mutters, sliding into the seat across from her. Decorated officers observe their exchange, not bothering to be covert.

Her eyes seem to light up when she sees him, the paper she’s reading lying forgotten on the table. “Sasuke-kun saw the protestors, huh?”

Sasuke snorts. “It’s impossible not to,” he says. “I wasn’t aware there was a new God we had to worship.” For a split-second, his pink-haired companion seems to freeze. Her mouth opens, but no words come out.

After some time, she begins again. “Chakra is absolute energy,” Sakura says below her breath. She peers up at him from beneath her growing fringe. “What’s the menu number for the tonkotsu ramen, Sasuke-kun?” Shooting a meaningful glance his way, she shakes her head and laughs at herself. “Oh, I’m so forgetful. It’s the _first_ thing on the menu, after all.” 

Across from her, Sasuke rests his elbows on the table. Moving his left hand away from where his face is perched, he raises his index finger in confirmation. She coughs and taps her pen twice on the table. Seeing him nod, she continues. “At **noon** , they **actually** tested **renewed** energy **up** in **Tenten’s** lab. **Of** course, **none** of **our** hypotheses **that** predicted **success** or **actual** utility **failed** our **expectations**.” (2)

“Interesting,” Sasuke remarks, voice monotone. “What happened to the experiment?” He hits the bottom of his metal bowl once with his chopsticks, supposedly out of boredom.

Now nodding at him, Sakura clears her throat. “Well, it was the fourth trial. The results were mixed, so they’re going to keep trying.” She unfolds her paper, glancing over her annotations with practiced care. “They said it’s being redone, I mean, everyone needs to be assessed. I wouldn’t be so hopeful if it tested negative two times… still, the idea is doable.” She shrugs. “Whatever. They’re writing an article publishing this November or December. The game is set already. Even I haven’t published research in that journal.” (3)

“Jealous?” he asks. When she looks up, she sees that Sasuke is smirking at her from behind his palm.

Sakura blushes. “A little, you don’t have to rub it in though. You jerk,” she sputters. His smirk deepens.

“Well, Sakura,” he says, knocking on the table twice before standing up, “you’re clever. Another door will open up for you.” Sasuke waits for her to gather her things.

She bangs her lunch tray against the table once as she rises from the table to follow him out of the cafeteria. Still red from his teasing and his coded compliment, Sakura speaks with confidence, “If I had all Tsunade-shishou’s tests…” (4)

Satisfied by her answers and the blush on her cheeks, he departs. “Ah,” Sasuke says beside her, stepping onto an open elevator with haste, “I have to speak with Kakashi. Later, Sakura.” He palms the weekly pass stuffed deep into his pockets, entering the code for the facility’s lowest level.

* * *

The dials on the machine light up slowly, their fluorescent neon coloring a remnant from a time where the future was bright. They measure temperature and radiation fluctuations, their screens dusty from lack of use. “I knew you’d be here,” Sakura says, watching the familiar figure emerge through the door. She’d been waiting only fifteen minutes.

Sasuke walks past her without a word of acknowledgement. But, faced with her tears, she notices, he looks away.

“If you step through there…” she says, but she knows he’s already weighed the consequences. Instead, she offers new information, “The portal will keep expanding until a new universe is born.”

Unperturbed, the portal hopper continues on his course, “Are you talking about the end of the world?” He adjusts his vest, reaching for something. “I saw him down there,” Sasuke divulges, “my brother.”

Her head spins. “Let me follow you. Our kind can’t survive down there,” Sakura pleads.

“We’re not the same,” he responds, eyes flashing red. “It’s how a soldier’s mind works. A scientist wouldn’t understand.”

“I’d understand if you told me anything,” the woman snaps. “If you hated me a little less.” She watches him grind his teeth in protest. “What if I told you I love you?” Sakura all but yells at his back, clutching the clothing above her heart, as if to keep it from breaking. “And we could be happy?” 

Sasuke’s leg shakes. He pauses at the dials, wearing a smile marked by melancholy. “You’re annoying, Sakura,” he says, echoing their Academy days, and her heart twists painfully.

“A happy life without justice,” Sakura says. She takes a deep breath. “There’s no use, is there?”

He appears behind her. After years stuck in the laboratory, she’d forgotten how quickly he moves; he could have left her without time to react, but instead Sasuke says, “If I leave you like this, they’ll think you helped me.”

“Does it always end like this?” Sakura can feel the warmth radiating from his body behind her back.

“There are infinite universes in the multiverse, Sakura,” Sasuke replies, humoring her one final time.

Her mouth twitches. “It’s more like eleven, actually.” Sakura stares at the ceiling, at the silhouette of a computer-generated moon. Their only witness.

The amused huff of breath Sasuke lets out makes her long tresses sway. “I’m sorry,” he says, but his conviction bleeds through his regret. Then, “Thank you very much.”

Before Sakura’s world goes black, she watches the moon spin its orbit. A happy life without justice, she realizes as it turns, neither of them ever had the choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The myth of Urashima Taro was about a man who rescued a turtle and carried it to a kingdom beneath the sea. He spends three days there, but decides he must go home. The princess sends him back with a box that she tells him not to open. When he reaches the surface, his loved ones are gone. Wondering whether the box might bring his family back, he opens it. White smoke emerges out of the box and centuries of age return to him.  
> (2) First letter of every second word: Naruto not safe.  
> (3) First letter of every fourth word: Beasts danger.  
> (4) Second letter of every word, Sasuke asking about the Door: False.


	3. weathering heights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke and Sakura weather a holy mountain. (Feudal Fantasy AU with samurai!Sasuke and priestess!Sakura)
> 
> “Maybe the Moon is beautiful only because it is far.”   
> “Yes, the Moon is beautiful,” Sasuke says. “But I prefer the springtime.”
> 
> Far from Konoha, the war is over. So they hold each other, steadfast, and name this absolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honor of SSM Day 22 "Distance from me to you" and my friend eloping with her lover in the mountains last weekend.

Today is fruitless, like yesterday and the next. It seems as though the mountain slope extends with each of his steps, no matter how fast or intentional. Once, Sasuke had summoned Bahamut to fly him to the Fuji-san’s peak; once, then, he’d flown through a cloud, almost straight into the Sun. Such is the aftermath of war: no end in sight, only vast darkness. Sasuke, like every weathered war hero and ex-vigilante, knows that winning is only the start of the battle. His years on Fuji-san are a testament to this: long, painstaking years that feel like a single, neverending day. He used to mark each sunrise and sunset on the trunk of a tree; but the tree did not survive the winter, and all records of his time were lost. Not that the summoner could particularly blame the tree; after all, not many things survive the mountain, where the undead rise from the earth to live out their last days with the rise and fall of the Moon. The constellations are his only companions.

Which is why Sasuke doesn’t greet her. Simply, he asks, “Where is she?” The redhead pauses, visibly. “Your cloak.” Karin clutches the white fabric of the hooded shrine maiden cloak more tightly around herself.

“Fuji-san separated us,” Karin says, “she’s somewhere below.” Biting back her frustration, she tells him, “She came here to talk to you, she even got me to climb this cursed mountain with her, and Fuji-san rejected her. Go to her.”

“The mountain rejected Sakura?” he asks, unable to stifle his surprise. Karin doesn’t miss the way his lips caress the last three syllables; this much, he can tell by the way her scowl deepens.

She spits on the ground. "Listen, Sasuke-kun, if you want redemption, start with people.” The summoner turns his back, considering the distance to the base of the mountain. “No, y’know what -- fuck people. Start with Sakura." The redhead tosses the cloak at him.

Wordlessly, he descends.

The vibrant hue of the priestess’ hair is easy to spot amongst the muddy grey of Fuji-san. The ground is wet from the torrent of rain and his sandals leave sloppy footprints in their wake. Sasuke finds her squatting near the blessing circle, her long rose hair wrapped around her like a blanket. She meticulously examines the old runes carved into the earth, the ends of her red hakama dragging in the mud.

“Sakura.” Sasuke crosses the barrier and drapes the heavy fabric of her cloak over her shoulders in one fluid motion. “You left this.”

“Karin was cold.” Not startling at his appearance, Sakura merely pulls the hood over her head and continues her studies. Scrutinizing the runes, then redirecting her gaze, her eyes meet his, vibrant green and probing. “Sasuke-kun. Naruto missed you,” she says, with a touch too much force to be casual, “at his wedding.”

The Uchiha kneels to roll her hakama up. “It’s a long way to the top of this mountain,” Sasuke admits.

“Indeed, weddings were more frequent then, in the spring,” the priestess remarks, flustered at the familiar contact and considering the new folds in the scarlet fabric, “but a shogun wedding is a different matter.”

“They intend for you to marry,” Sasuke concludes.

Sakura shakes her head. “A mere shrine maiden is not important enough to marry.” She shoots him a grim smile, wrought with her calculated refusal of the proposal. “I will stay and accompany Sasuke-kun.”

“Doesn’t the apprentice of Tsunade usually level mountains?” The summoner rolls the residual soil between his gloved fingers. “The strength of a hundred would be wasted wandering to the peak.”

“I wanted to weather this one with you, or sink with you. Whichever the gods are more disposed to granting.”

“There are no gods on this mountain,” he retorts, tone clipped. He had, after all, ridden on the back of one and lost to it, where Naruto had ascended and descended in a day, as easily as he ascended the chrysanthemum throne. Sasuke is loathe to be the last anything, but he is always the last: the last summoner, the last Uchiha, the last of his noble samurai lineage; and now, the last to conquer Fuji-san.

The priestess glances at the pooling rainwater in a muddy puddle on the ground. “Fuji-san is the god of this realm,” she states. Sakura enunciates the mountain’s name like a lover scorned, like a woman who had inherited her master’s distaste for losing; like a woman, who for years had poured over the scrolls and scriptures and taken to white magic, only to be rejected by the holy doctrine she pledged her life to. A woman like the spring sunlight, but unworthy of grace, by the mountain’s standards. 

And Sasuke, too, is unworthy of such grace. His years in solitude, searching for the temple at its top, tell him as much. So he takes the shrine maiden by the wrist and leads her into the tent she had built before he arrived and unravels her damp hair. Winning is only the start of the battle, the summoner thinks, as Sakura’s hair falls to her waist; and this is how they come undone.

* * *

Sasuke’s first look at her had been brief, from a distance, and this is the way that Sakura would find herself longing for him in their remaining days together on the Moon: a kind of plain affection, never to be requited. What is, the priestess wonders, the cost of a heart? Sakura had given hers so freely to him, in the span of their epic journey; where she followed him and Naruto on their quest to defeat a rogue Lunarian who threatened to swallow the Sun herself. But surely, the cost of hers must have been lesser than the price of adventure, because her heart is simple and true. Perhaps the cost was his huffing laughter, or the feel of his hand wrapped around her wrist. Regardless of the price, Sakura knows this much: Sasuke is always worth it.

She does not trick herself into believing that she might have a chance with him, but Sakura does believe that she has the ability to satiate her curiosity. It does not stop her from admiring the curl of his top lip when he speaks to her, and the pursing of them when he pronounces her name. She does not comprehend every word he speaks, yet she enjoys watching the movement of his lips. It is as if there is something dangling from the corner of his mouth, a kind of perceptible sweetness. He has a way with his subtle kindness that causes her to marvel. She openly examines him and begins to notice: the firm line of his mouth in contemplation, the stern expression that softens when she stumbles over herself.

Falling is a painful process, but Sakura prefers it to the alternative: a life as a present, or peace offering to a bloated daimyo’s son. She begins the chant and they begin to float. An apparition reaches for her ankle as she casts and casts. “Why are you cursed?” her companion’s gloomy voice inquires. The white glow of  _ Holy  _ sends the body flying downwards, back into the earth it emerged from.

“Dark things are drawn to the light.” Sakura can’t bring herself to peer down, but she can’t stop seeing either: the piles of children, begging for mercy. The priestess mulls over the paradox: no war is without casualties on both sides, and yet, and yet -- don’t healers heal? Then why is she so plagued by death and the evidence in her complicity of it? “What do you see?”

Sasuke mutters a low-level fire spell to keep the stubborn ghouls away. “I see my family,” he divulges quietly, the weight of his haunting dispelling the spirits of hers.

Sakura looks down again. A corpse wears her love’s aristocratic face. “I see everyone I couldn’t save.” Meeting his charcoal stare, she blanches. Her heart clenches painfully, imagining the impossible perfection Sasuke was groomed to seek; the impossible perfection that drove him against his brother, the lonely and impossible perfection. But neither of their loneliness is deserving of pity; it seems their endless journey is the ultimate divine punishment for being short of the ideal that Naruto encapsulates. “You don’t need to be perfect to be forgiven.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” He scoffs. “Naruto climbed the mountain in a day.”

“It was his destiny,” Sakura says, “he was chosen.”

“Did you write his fortune before he came?”*

“I did.” Sakura ceases her chanting, bringing them to the ground gently. “He made an offering.”

“I imagine your penmanship had improved by then.” The corners of the summoner’s mouth twitch. “When Naruto and I were training under Kakashi -- your scrolls--”

The priestess gapes at him, bewildered at how the ghosts of his torment suddenly evaporated from beside her. “What does a samurai know of penmanship? You and Naruto and your endless teasing -- terribly unbecoming of two noblemen.”

“We were children, Sakura,” the raven-haired man corrects. Then, he answers, “Many things, and more about yours.” His features grow hazy in her field of vision. 

Sasuke’s taunting relents as she reaches to touch the back of her head tenderly. When she holds her hand in front of him, it’s stained red. Though slurred, the priestess recites the words to  _ Cura _ with ease. Sakura spots the tension in Sasuke’s shoulders as she regains her senses. “I’m fine, Sasuke-kun,” she reassures him, but he’s too fixated on the rust covering her palm. “To the river, to the river,” Sakura yields. They follow the sound of running water.

* * *

Sasuke feels the sadness in the base of his spine, curling up between his bones and tightening, as he evaluates Sakura’s injuries. Sometimes the pain is sweet like kohakutou carefully laid out in a glass dish, but more often than not, it hurts in a loving way. The pain reminds him of lazy summers in Konoha; of sticky hands, eating candied apples in delicious heat and humidity, being lulled to sleep by his mother’s colorful stories of miracles, of magic, black and white. And his brother, always, in the shadows; and his brother, always, later and later, until he vanished and took their parents’ souls with him. His death is the largest in the long list of Sasuke’s regrets.

The samurai sits on the beach next to the riverbed as Sakura wades, dipping the ends of her long hair into the water. “Isn’t it comforting?” she says. “The dead can’t swim.” The priestess walks deeper into the water, tilting her head back with a sigh of relief. Her locks stretch down the length of the river, and the Uchiha recalls that the last time they saw each other, her hair had been short. His honorable upbringing reminds him that shrine maidens are supposed to grow their hair long. Sasuke watches the ripples of her flesh hidden beneath her sparse robes. In the length of her hair, he measures the distance from her to him. Like two mountains, not meeting in this world; like the heavens and the earth.

Skeptical of the current, he pulls her back to shore and rests her head in his lap. Slowly, he massages small circles into her scalp, the weight of the water washing the blood away. “What are you thinking?” Sakura asks.

Through the translucent white of her wet kosode, Sasuke sees a jade comb peeking out, tucked away in her breast. “Unholy things.”

“How improper.” Her skin warms beneath his fingers, betraying her embarrassment.

Brushing the hair from her temples, Sasuke drawls, “I am a samurai with my fingers wrapped in the hair of a white priestess. There is nothing less proper.”

Sakura’s head shifts in his lap. “Is washing a maiden’s hair improper?”

“Perhaps.” His fingers skim the seal on the center of her forehead. 

“Speaking in riddles is improper.” Still, she holds the comb out to him, an unspoken request that he obliges.

“Now the priestess is being petulant.” Sasuke carefully brings the comb downwards, starting at her delicate roots. Allowing himself to admire the petal pink of her tresses, he observes, “You were properly named.”

“My father did not name me for my hair, or for the flower.” His gaze traces her form to the tangled ends of her hair. He wonders if they tell stories. “I was named for a humble joruri singer’s melody. Are you familiar?” With his left hand, Sasuke untangles the larger knots before brushing through them. “Sakura petals fluttering down, embracing every bit of my fluttering love; even now, I’m dreaming the dream I prayed for with you that spring.”*

The samurai is inclined to think of his mother, humming the melancholy lullaby. “It’s a sad tune.” But -- Sasuke remembers -- it was one of his mother’s favorites.

“My parents fell in love to it,” she tells him, and he finds himself grateful that they did. As if sensing the gravity of his thanks and shying from it, Sakura comments on the bloom of black lilies on the riverbank beneath them. “How do things so lovely grow in spaces so unforgiving?”

Sasuke combs through her hair once more, from root to end. The fine strands slip through easily. “They must.” On Fuji-san, he takes Sakura’s hand to steady her as she stands. Their fingers lace together. The Uchiha doesn’t let go. The path is more obvious to them, hand in hand. Overhead, a flock of magpies guides the two down a clear passage as the undead rest in the soil of the mountain, finally at peace.*

* * *

Sakura watches the unobscured form of the Moon in the clear night sky next to Sasuke on the steps of the temple. “Maybe the Moon is beautiful only because it is far,” she reflects. The beauty of the celestial being hides her terror.

Feeling the unwavering weight of Sasuke’s gaze upon her cheek, the priestess contentedly looks on. “Yes, the Moon is beautiful,” he says.* “But I prefer the springtime.”

Marveling at his confession but still understanding, she smiles to herself. “I loved you and I love you. That is my only transgression.” Perched next to him, she pours the sake they had found on the temple’s altar into two bowls. “Shall I do a dance?”* They bring the alcohol to their lips ceremoniously, linking arms at the elbow. Before she can set the ceramic down on the steps, Sasuke holds her face close to his. “If we are, well, we are -- but we have no witness.” The sacred branch dangles between them.*

“The mountain,” Sasuke replies, “and the Moon.”

“The heavens and the earth,” Sakura says. And when he wraps his arms around her, she knows nothing else. “I’m bringing you home, after all of this.”

“Sakura,” the samurai condescends. Moonlight illuminates the elegant curve of his brow.

“Yes?”

Sasuke pauses, as if considering her once more, gleaning over the lines on her face. “I’m home.”

“You--” the shrine maiden sets their bowls down-- “Sasuke-kun. Welcome home.” The sight of his smile, however commonplace it is to her, now, doesn’t fail to make her heart stutter. 

Sakura and Sasuke stay the path together, not asking for more than each other’s company. Not once does Sakura yearn for home, for Konoha, she realizes, is not the heart; Sasuke is. Far from Konoha, the war is over; and there is no room for war in her honest heart, nor in his. So they hold each other, steadfast, and name this absolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this Final Fantasy/Japanese feudal AU. I wanted to write an ending where they don't go back to Konoha, and instead continue on the mountain, or even travel the world together (in light of recent events). Writing feudal banter was truly an experience, in a good way!
> 
> Some notes*:  
> *People who are familiar with my writing know that I love to draw the parallel between Ninigi and Sakuya and Sasuke and Sakura. Konohasakuya-hime is the goddess of Mt. Fuji, so I thought it was appropriate. And of course, there's a beach scene with a jade comb (both allusions to Ninigi and Sakuya).  
> *The constellations that follow are the myth of Orihime and Hikoboshi, who are only reunited once a year during Tanabata. A flock of magpies builds a bridge so that Orihime can cross and meet her lover. If it rains that year, they are unable to meet and have to wait for the next.  
> *Listen to Sakura by Ikimono-gakari, it's such a pretty and sad song!  
> *A reference to the famous Soseki quote, "Tsuki ga kirei desu ne" that is often translated into English as a love confession, though it literally translates to "The Moon is beautiful, isn't it?"  
> *Sakura jokes about dancing because miko (shrine maidens) traditionally perform dances at wedding ceremonies.  
> *The sacred branch is a wedding branch that's usually given as an offering.


	4. south of the border, west of the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke and Sakura share a secret. (1960s!AU)
> 
> Fulfillment can sometimes, Sakura learns, be as simple as planting a new garden, or as mundane as making her partner a cup of tea. She does not wish for anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the 1960s, assuming that Konoha is Japan and Suna is the proverbial West. I really couldn't think of a proper summary for this, so read at your leisure. It's the longest one-shot I've ever written.

At the beginning of the fall term, Ino returns from a family vacation in Nami with a fiance in check. Her engagement comes as no surprise; a woman as beautiful, well-off, and well-bred as Ino was destined to marry well. Her love story is something from a storybook, starting with love at first sight and ending with an engagement to a well-known painter, all within the span of one month. “At sunset, he took me to the shore,” the blonde says, amorous, “and then he asked -- can you imagine how romantic the Sun looked, reflected on the sea?”

Sakura has never seen the ocean, but she nods regardless. Her world is only as small as the radius of the city, from its suburbs, where her parents live and go to work at a lumber mill, to its center, where Sakura and Ino attend the Academy together and Sakura takes her shifts at the Yamanaka flower shop to save for university tuition. The blonde pulls her along to the block by the elbow, eager to find the perfect dress for her special day. The ends of their navy, knee-length skirts flutter with the autumn breeze as a small plane flies overhead.

Ino wants a modern wedding, so a kimono won’t do. They emerge from the fifth shop of the day with their arms linked, the weight of Ino’s dress slung over Sakura’s back. White, princess cut, and four kilograms of chantilly lace; the dress costs more than Sakura’s wages at the flower shop from the last three months, combined. The blonde hadn’t peeked at the price tag before purchasing her dress, hadn’t flinched when the salesclerk ran her card through. Sakura wonders what it must feel like, to be so casual with money; to buy something without considering the cost, first. She carries the dress to Ino’s family flower shop while her best friend explains the intricacy of the embroidery on the sleeves, designs that were brought over from Ame by commercial plane. As Ino hangs the dress up by its hook in her closet, Sakura laments that four kilograms of chantilly lace have seen more of the world than she has. 

Sakura only dreams of flying, after all. 

The next morning, she puts her apron on and begins her Saturday shift. At precisely ten, Sakura hears the familiar jingle that tells her she has a customer. Turning around, a jovial voice shouts out, “Good morning, Sakura-chan!” She doesn’t need to look up to know that it’s Naruto, who has been a regular purveyor of the Yamanaka flower shop since he began courting Hinata at the beginning of the school year in April. Since then, Sakura knows to expect him each weekend. 

“Good morning.” She reaches for a bouquet she’d pre-wrapped for him, a careful arrangement of morning glories and magenta hydrangeas. “What color?” Sakura asks, gesturing to the variety of string lined up neatly on the counter beside her.

The Hokage’s son frowns when he can’t find the one he desires; knowing his obvious preference would disturb the bouquet’s color scheme, she had hidden this thread behind the cash register at the store’s opening. “Don’t you usually have orange, Sakura-chan?”

“The orange would clash with the pink of the hydrangea,” another voice condescends, “dead-last.” Sasuke appears like a character straight out of an Enchi novel: superior, aristocratic, and aware of the former. Though it is not unusual for Sakura to see him on any occasion -- they had shared almost identical schedules for the past three years and were both close friends of Naruto -- seeing him in casualwear, in a faded navy jumper, catches her off guard.

“Sasuke-kun is right,” she agrees, hiding the flush of her face behind the large bouquet. “Hinata-chan would like the purple.” Sakura cuts the string and wraps it around the base of the bouquet, tying a sturdy knot. “Surely, after almost half a year, you should be able to choose the color your girlfriend would most favor.” Sasuke snorts in response.

Naruto chuckles sheepishly, thumbing through his wallet for the proper payment. “Yeah-- well-- what are you doing here, bastard?”

The class president shrugs. “I was in the area and saw you bothering Sakura through the store window.”

Sakura counts his cash and opens the register to hand him his change. “That’s convenient,” Naruto chides, shoving his balled hands into his pockets. “Anyway, I’m off. Later, Sasuke,” he nods at Sakura, “Sakura-chan.” The blond wiggles his eyebrows. “No funny business while I’m gone.” 

She rolls her eyes and slams her open palm down on the counter. “You better get those flowers to Hinata-chan when the bloom is still fresh, idiot!” The mayor’s son chuckles nervously as the Uchiha ushers him out the door. “How can I help you, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura fears the day he might walk into the flower shop, not to see Naruto off, but to purchase a bouquet for another woman.

But today is no such day. The tall teenager perks the corners of his mouth up in a semblance of a smile and slides a present, wrapped in brown paper, across the counter. “For entrance examinations,” Sasuke says simply, watching her with a calm expression.

Sakura picks the present up and bows deeply. “Thank you, Sasuke-kun.” She crosses her arms, holding the package against her chest.

“Open it,” he commands. She slides the gift out of its paper covering, curiously studying the cover. “Yamanaka is getting married,” Sasuke says, “but you’re ranked second in our class. Study well.”

Sakura flips through the thick book, half-using the pages to fan herself and calm the growing warmth on her cheeks. Out of the corner of her eyes, she almost misses Sasuke’s wink at her, and his satisfied smirk as she realizes that he’s given her a collection of university entrance examination questions that is typically only reserved for legacy students. Of all things, Sasuke would give her an examination preparation book as a present. “I will do my best, Kaichou-san.” She offers a confident smile in return, but he frowns at the address. “Sasuke-kun,” she amends, and the content neutrality returns to his face.

“Try to be early to Calculus on Monday,” Sasuke says, pivoting on his heel, “Shikamaru is an insufferable partner, and he takes your seat because he likes to watch the clouds during lecture.”

“I’ll fight him for it,” Sakura tells Sasuke, halfway out the door. He pauses for a minute to let out a wry chuckle before continuing on his way. She contemplates his words; true, Ino has her engagement, but Sakura has Sasuke-kun and Naruto, and university next April. She is unlike Ino or Hinata, blessed with beauty and refinement and family name; nor is she like Sasuke or Shikamaru -- she is no genius; nor is she like Naruto, who exudes confidence, charisma, and good luck. But she has this: if she studies hard enough, if she works hard enough, Sakura can finally be enough; and she can sit with Naruto and Sasuke as their equal, as a college student at Konoha University.

* * *

Two weeks after Sakura receives her acceptance letter to Konoha University in February, she sits with Naruto and Sasuke in an empty classroom to tell them she’s withdrawn from the next term. Naruto asks if she’s insane, while Sasuke stares at her as if she’s grown a third head. It’s a working class problem, and she doesn’t expect either boy to understand. Naruto’s father belongs to new wave wealth, and his mother, old money from Uzushiogakure; Sasuke’s family collectively owns half the land of Konoha’s municipality. They’d never had to worry about leaky roofs or unpaid hospital bills.

Sakura’s father is a man nearing his sixties, who should already have retired. His knees give out one day, the weight of the lumber falling against his back. Tsunade, the female doctor who treats him that fateful day, tells Sakura and her mother that Kizashi might never walk again. Without hesitation, Sakura hands over her six months of salary and empties her family’s emergency fund; the next year’s tuition is the last thing on her mind. A dainty girl, she learns to shoulder the weight of her father’s body, carrying him on her back from room to room, pushing him on the wheelchair she’d purchased with what was left of her wages from the flower shop.

“I’m sorry,” Kizashi tells his daughter, fumbling and apologetic, the way he is always fumbling and apologetic. Mebuki takes him now, leading her husband to the bathroom for a wash.

“Don’t say sorry to her,” the stern woman says, “if she were as brilliant as she thinks she is, she would have gotten a scholarship.”

Biting back her tears, Sakura grip tightens and causes the pencil in her hand to snap. Of course, there are scholarships -- not that they are particularly abundant or scarce, but she is ineligible, from the start, on the basis of her womanhood. Her father’s accident sharpens Mebuki’s tongue and dulls Sakura’s tolerance for her mother’s outbursts. She departs from their small apartment with an angry slam of the door, running towards the bus stop so as to not miss her evening shift. There are no surprise guests for her, and Sakura mostly sweeps the floor and scrubs the dried soil from the gardening tools.

On her way home, she loiters around, wandering aimlessly from street to street, still not free of her frustration. Sakura notices, as she turns a corner, that she’s been followed from her workplace by a strange man. Fearful, she hurries to the bus. Beneath the lone streetlight, the stranger approaches her. “You don’t remember me, do you?” the man says, his voice tinged with amusement, “Haruno Sakura-chan?”

Sakura ponders his vibrant red hair for a moment, then remembers, “Akasuna-san.” He had just graduated from university when they had met; Sakura, a twelve-year old girl who lost her way trying to deliver her parents lunch, and Sasori, the courteous young man who helped her home, son of the entrepreneurs who owned lumber mills across the five nations. “You couldn’t have said hello, first?”

“It was a fun chase.” He runs his thumb over the back of her hand, rubbing the remnants of dirt off.

She yanks her hand away, reflexively. “It’s not fun for a woman going home alone,” she says, annoyed.

“I apologize. Please, let me drive you home instead.”

“Will you kidnap me?” Sakura asks. “I am better off riding the bus.”

“Then you’re free to take the bus,” the older man replies laughingly. 

When Sakura boards the bus, he follows after her. “What do you want?” she snaps, at the end of her patience.

“You’ve grown since I last met you,” he says mysteriously. Sasori regards her now, observing the asymmetry of her features. “As for me, my parents have handed over their company. And, I believe, it’s about time for me to marry.”

Mildly taken aback by his straightforwardness, Sakura blinks. “Why me?”

“You’re a clever girl.” Clever, Sakura notes, not beautiful. “I was told of your father’s accident at one of the family mills.”

She politely shakes her head. “I don’t need your charity.”

The redhead insists, “It’s not charity, it’s well-earned. Why don’t we help each other?” While wondering what she could possibly do to help him, she refuses once more; but Sasori, still, persists. 

She mulls over his proposal while he stays in the city, walking her to school every morning and riding the bus with her back every afternoon. A month into his courtship, Sakura lets Sasori carry her bag of textbooks as he drops her off in front of the Academy building. The shape of her fondness is an overwhelming thing, though her love is reserved for another. She cannot overlook that things are different, since the older man came to town: the hole in the roof, which was a nuisance to her family for many months, was gone one day, after Sakura returned home from school; their fridge, often empty in the past, now overflows with fresh produce, groceries; and their bathroom now sports a new metal bar, which Kizashi can use to support himself when Mebuki is away at work.

Sasuke waits for Sakura outside of their Calculus room with a scowl. “What business does a man ten years your senior have with a high school student?” The perception is offhanded, but the accusation is heavy.

“For me,” she says, “well, Sasuke-kun must know.”

“Know what?”

“For a simple girl like me, there has only been enough space in my heart for one person.” Sakura lets out a shaky breath. “Sasuke-kun.”

“Sakura,” Sasuke says, his voice heavy with regret. And Sakura knows that it’s not because he loathes her, but because -- Sasuke would marry a beauty of equal import: a Hyuuga, like Hinata, or an Uzumaki, or even a distant Uchiha cousin. There was no space in his future for a girl like her, of recent last name, with no college education or particular beauty to compensate for her lack of prestige. High scores in class would not be enough to warrant the approval of his family. And yet, for three years, she had sat by his side in co-ed classes, and then in the higher-level science classes that were deemed unfit for women; and they had eaten lunch together, and sometimes shared notes in class. And yet, and yet. Sasuke’s gaze lingers; it always lingers. “Thank you.” The sound of his sincere gratitude comes in the form of his rejection, and she knows this is their inevitable end.

She defeats Sasori in shogi in the evening, and grins at the pieces as she takes his king. “You let me win,” Sakura remarks, and her suitor smiles back at her. “You’re a very gracious man.” As she studies the characters carefully carved into the back of a knight, she tells him, “Certainly, I would be willing to make a gracious man miso soup every day.”*

His thumb brushes the back of her hand again, then bestows a gift upon it. The ring, a metalwear and tradition imported from Suna, sits prettily on her fourth finger. Sakura explains this to Ino the next morning, who throws her arms around her neck and squeals excitedly, inquiring about the weather in Suna and the best time of year for a wedding. Sasuke walks past her without a second of acknowledgement, a perfect stranger.

* * *

Her marital home sits on the outskirts of Suna, away from most things, sprawling along the border with the laze of a young sloth. It comes with its fair share of work: the mattresses, which need to be sunned every week; the garden, which is well-kept, even in the middle of a desert; Sasori’s woodworking room, which Sakura visits sparingly, lest she interrupt her husband’s genius; and Deidara, who also needs to be kept -- mostly by her husband, but by Sakura, as well.

“So you’re the one he chose,” the blond regards her when she first steps through the threshold with Sasori, balancing her belongings on her shoulders.

Sakura bows her head to the stranger, unaware. “I am grateful to my husband for taking me as his wife.”

“Your hair is interesting,” Deidara says. “It’s the only interesting thing about you.” He tells her this as he walks away, the sound of his footsteps against the hardwood of their home’s floor echoing. She would have been insulted if she hadn’t accepted this truth about herself long ago -- for it was as Sasori said, that day after all; she was a clever girl, but that was about it.

Deidara is Suna University’s artist in residence; not that Sakura realized that in residence would be so literal, and the man would be taking up space at her dinner table every night. “Haruno,” the young man calls her by her maiden name, “you burnt the miso.” There’s always something smug about his expression when he looks at her, as if he’s holding something over her head. “Again.” 

“That’s enough, Deidara,” Chiyo berates. She smiles at Sakura after with a gentle look in her eyes.

Beside Sakura, her husband watches wordlessly; and though her husband is not a wicked man, she understands his silence as cruelty. Sakura observes the rose that colors Deidara’s cheeks when Sasori gazes at him from across the table. If Sakura were in love with her husband, perhaps she might have felt competition with this house guest who calls him _danna_ ; but all she feels is a sense of vague intrigue.* Where does her Sasori go, she wonders, when she wakes to an empty bed each morning?

She finds her answer when she sees Deidara’s naked body sprawled beneath her husband’s on the kitchen table. Sakura stutters, her face numb with shock, before walking back to her bedroom and planting herself in the middle of their mattress. Sasori rejoins her and bows his head. Apologizing profusely, the redhead says, “I was not completely honest with you.”

“Clearly,” Sakura replies, without any real heat. 

“My parents’ will provided that I would inherit the lumber company,” Sasori explains, “once I married.”

“Why don’t we help each other?” she repeats, echoing the ghost of their past. Her fingers grip cotton sheets. The sheets on their bed are white and crisp. Not once had they shared the bed, in the improper way that only husbands and wives or people in love share their beds.

“I’m sorry,” the older man repeats, though the tone of his voice betrays no remorse. Hazel eyes gaze at her with an empty expression, waiting for her next move.

As her residual shock fades away, Sakura tells him, “You’re a kind husband.” And she means those words from the depths of her earnest heart -- for what other husband would let her indulge in the freedom of being Akasuna Sakura, who takes a course in Biology and Chemistry at Suna University, who travels by herself to visit her parents when she so chooses; who, for once in her life, lives freely knowing that she will always be fed, and she will always have a house to return to? Their marriage is not a cage, no -- “It is a privilege,” she continues, “to be Akasuna Sasori-san’s wife.”

When she’s not busy with her studies, Sakura passes time with Chiyo, mostly, who is as brilliant as old women come in Suna. She teaches Sakura how to paint varnish on Sasori’s creations, when they are almost complete, and how to care for a plant in the middle of the desert. Sakura tends to overwater, and Chiyo reminds her that the vegetation in Suna is made of sturdier material than the plants in Konoha, which she calls fragile and fickle. Then, she teaches Sakura how to harvest, and how to make ointments out of the natural ingredients. 

Sakura is quick to learn, and quick to speak; she excels, as she does at most things she puts her mind to. She is, if not anything else, good at tests, and her marriage is merely one of them. So she climbs to the top of her class; so she prepares the miso at Deidara’s request; so she sits for the medical college entrance examination, at the end of her fourth year, and passes with flying colors. 

Her advisor clucks at her disdainfully, when he delivers the news. “Didn’t you realize? There are no women at Suna Medical College. Try the nursing program, if it pleases you.”

“But I’ve sat with the medical students through all of their science sequence, and outperformed them,” she argues, “look at my transcript! Look at my admissions score!”

“There are no women,” he repeats with more force, “at Suna Medical College.” His office’s door shuts in front of her with the gravitas of the situation, rattling at its hinges.

It is Chiyo who reaches out to Tsunade about Sakura’s rejection; it is Chiyo who presents Sakura’s transfer acceptance letter to Konoha Medical University to her, with her eyes narrowed pleasantly like those of an overfed cat.

“I couldn’t possibly go,” Sakura says. “Who will have tea with you? Who will sun the mattresses?”

Chiyo looks at her, unimpressed. “I suppose we’ll have to put Deidara to work, for once,” the elderly woman says, “and as for tea, well. Your company is better enjoyed, but my grandson’s might suffice.” She places the letter on Sakura’s bedside table. “It will be good for both of them, those lazy boys.”

Unblinkingly, her husband informs her that the tuition is paid for, as is her room and board; as is her ticket back home, though he won’t be able to escort her to the station. “Sakura,” is what Deidara calls her on her way out, happy to have her away from the house.

Sakura watches the twilight through her train window, reclining comfortably in her seat with her luggage overhead. She fits all of her life in Suna from the past four years into three suitcases and a large purse and does not look back once. At a lonelier hour, she thinks about the succulents in the backyard; the coyote howl; the unfinished pieces hanging on her husband’s rack; Chiyo’s lukewarm tea. These things were, before Sakura had come, and they would continue to be, even in her absence. Still, she will miss them; these are the only things she could not pack away.

* * *

The Yamanaka flower shop hasn’t changed much, and this is something Sakura takes respite in as Ino bounces a toddler on her hip. “Look how pretty you are,” her former best friend gushes, “you’ve grown into a beautiful flower! Just like a Yamanaka flower, I must say.”

Sakura nods, flattered. “Thank you, Yamanaka-san.”

“Yamanaka-san?” the blonde looks at her, offended. “Are you kidding me? Look at me -- Sakura, Sakura. Forehead. Call me Ino, call me Pig, but do not call me Yamanaka-san.”

The timely ringing of the bell at ten in the morning tells Sakura that the store’s patrons haven’t changed in the past four years, either. “Sakura-chan!”

She turns around to correct him. “Akasuna-san.” The blond towers over her, all bronzed skin and pearly whites. “I see you’re here for your Saturday bouquet.” The act warms Sakura’s heart.

“Anything for the wife,” the man replies, running a hand through his short hair. 

Ino’s son lets out a sweet giggle. “We heard you’re expecting another,” the woman says, pushing away his wallet, “so please, consider this a gift from our family.”

Naruto beams. “We like the name Himawari.”

“A girl, then,” Ino says, and Inojin gurgles happily. “You know, we never arranged that playdate!”

“Well, there’s Boruto’s birthday next month,” their whiskered ex-classmate suggests, “how about you and Sakura-chan come around? It’s been years.”

“Akasuna-san,” the medical student insists, “but yes, that sounds wonderful, Uzumaki-san. Perhaps my husband can stop by, if work allows for travel.”

Naruto’s mouth twitches. “See, Sakura-chan, I don’t think that Sasuke would like that--” 

As if summoned by the man’s words, Sasuke appears in the doorway of the shop. “Like what?” Then, surveying the store and noticing the blush of her hair, he nods. “Sakura.”

Before Sakura can open her mouth, Ino reprimands, “Akasuna-san.” The blonde’s eyes narrow at the Uchiha, and Sakura’s heart warms with her sympathy. Once a rival in love, Ino had witnessed Sakura’s crush for Sasuke bloom throughout their high school years, only for Sakura to be rebuffed and ignored by her paramour towards graduation. Where Sakura had easily forgiven, in her years away, it seems as though Ino has not extended the same sentiment. “Ah, Sakura, you’ve been married for a while now, haven’t you? Do you and Akasuna-san hope for any children?”

Sakura’s face flushes the color of her hair. “No, we do not hope,” she says.

The mayor’s son pouts. “Why not? All of our kids could be best friends.”

“Well--”

“Your husband is unkind,” Sasuke states, assessing her state of being and dress. 

Sakura smooths creases in the fabric of her skirt. “No, my husband is not unkind.”

“Then your husband is negligent,” he pushes.

“No,” she sighs, “my husband is exponentially kind. But my affections are lost on him.”

At this, Ino peers at Sakura with a creased brow. “Lost?” the blonde questions, her voice marred with concern.

“You see,” Sakura begins slowly, “my husband’s affections belong to another. They are not mine to claim.” The sky blue of Ino’s eyes reflects her melancholy. “But I didn’t marry for love, so there’s no need to be sad.” Sharing this secret with the three of them, Sakura feels as if a weight has been lifted off of her chest, even for a moment.

Moving is a cycle of packing and unpacking, and she soon finds herself fawning over a pregnant Hinata, who is as elegant and bashful as ever. Gone is the raven haired beauty’s stuttering affection, replaced now with the cultivated love of a married woman; as Naruto and Hinata share a plate, Sakura is reminded of what a husband and wife should look like: happy, in love, and happy in love. Sasori had not written, but Chiyo’s letters came only a week after she settled in. In it, the elderly woman had sent Sakura a fistful of sand from their garden. “The red sand misses you,” Chiyo had written. “As do I.”

Sitting in the garden of Naruto’s estate, Sakura has never felt more like a stranger in a place she once called home. The forked petal of a cherry blossom tree floats in front of her and Sakura imagines Chiyo’s sarcasm cutting through; fragile plants, she would say, would not survive a night in the desert. Yet here she is. Four years is a long time, and everyone has grown on and without her. Sakura feels, in that moment, more lonely than she did a month ago, sitting on a train alone, traveling north one-fifty kilometers per hour. Boruto is the spitting image of his father, and perhaps Sasuke, even, has a child to call his own; the thought makes her heart ache, badly. 

She clutches the mint green nylon of her dress, willing herself to stand and enjoy the celebration. Then, suddenly, a toy airplane lands in her lap. Sakura startles in her seat, looking up to see which child the toy might belong to. A small girl with cropped black hair smiles at her, more gum than teeth. She sets her tiny feet on top of Sakura’s white mules and attempts to climb into her lap.

“Is this yours?” Sakura asks, hoisting the girl up and handing her the plane. 

Much less interested in the toy plane than she is in Sakura, she grabs at her pink fringe. “Pretty!” the girl exclaims, clapping her hands together.

“Miko-chan!” comes her mother’s worried voice, not long after. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere and -- wait -- oh, what did I tell you?” The woman bows to Sakura, embarrassed. “Sorry for the bother. My daughter is a handful, as you can see.”

“It’s no bother at all.” She hands the toy airplane to the mother. “She dropped this, but it seems as though she’s found a new toy to play with.” The girl grabs at a stray lock of Sakura’s hair again, smiling the same gap-toothed smile.

The mother laughs, dark chocolate brown hair spilling over her shoulder. “Well, she likes pretty women,” she says, radiating warmth. “I don’t think we’ve been acquainted before. My family name is Uchiha, but please call me Izumi-san.”

Her eyes widen, then, as she considers the possibility that Sasuke’s wife had just introduced herself to her, and that she was sitting with Sasuke’s daughter in her lap. “I’m Sakura-san,” she responds, content that he had been able to find joy with someone so radiant.

“Oh, Akasuna?” Izumi asks. “My husband speaks highly of you -- he’s connected to the Board at Konoha University, and told me for the first time ever, they’d accepted a medical transfer student. Congratulations, Sakura-san! We are happy to have you in Konoha.”

“I’m happy to be back home,” says Sakura, piecing the scraps of information together. Miko launches herself from Sakura’s lap into a sprint towards the garden’s fountain. Two men walk towards them and she recognizes each one right away. Izumi’s daughter latches onto the leg of the younger one, who scoops her in his arms and adjusts so that the girl can ride on his wide shoulders.

“There he is,” the brunette says, “right in time! He’ll be thrilled to meet you in person.” It feels as if time stalls as Izumi approaches the two men to reveal which is her partner. When she stands on her toes to press a kiss to the older brother’s face, Sakura is flooded with a wave of relief. “Look who I ran into, anata!” Izumi fixes the collar on her husband’s shirt. “Akasuna Sakura, you know, the one!”

He extends his hand towards her, which she takes politely. “It’s strange to call you by your married name,” Itachi greets, “Akasuna-san. I wasn’t sure that you were the same person, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Congratulations on your acceptance.”

“Thank you, Uchiha-san.” He releases her hand, which falls back to her knee. Afternoon light refracts in the diamond on Sakura’s ring finger, illuminating the younger man’s face.

“It must be lonely for a young woman to live without her husband,” Izumi remarks.

Itachi hums his agreement. “The hospital university is close to the Uchiha district,” he states, imperiously, “Sasuke can accompany you, if need be.”

Before Sakura can protest, the younger Uchiha brother interjects. “That’s fine,” Sasuke says, with tamed disinterest. Miko squirms on her uncle’s shoulders.

Later, over a flute of champagne, Izumi tells Sakura that Miko is named for Itachi and Sasuke’s late mother, who was murdered with their father in an opera house tragedy the year after Sakura had left for Suna. As they drink, they mourn the memory of Mikoto, who was always so cordial and generous with her time. Izumi’s daughter is asleep in her father’s lap, the ribbon of her headband loose and hanging around her neck. 

“The Uchiha are bound to our homeland,” says the Uchiha matriarch, wiping down the toy plane with Itachi’s handkerchief. “For years, we’ve planted ourselves in Konoha. And this is how the people repaid us.” In that moment, Sakura notices the telltale fan painted onto the model aircraft’s empennage. “We may very well take to the sky, next.” 

The wings of the metal bird span the width of Sakura’s palm. If she were to drop it, it would fall to the ground and break, without question. This is how delicate their dreams must be, held up only by an impossible faith.

* * *

Hinata gives birth in the summer. Sakura is on her shift at the hospital when Hinata goes into labor, and proceeds to dote on the heiress and hold her hand through contractions. Naruto is what most spoiled and charismatic politician’s sons become, in their adulthood: a spoiled and charismatic politician, and an ambassador at the United Alliance of the Five Nations. Business had sent him away for a conference, but the blond barrels in the moment before Himawari comes into the world.

When they place the infant on the weighing scale and the resident on-call records pertinent information for medical documentation, Sakura decides that she loves every ounce of her, with her mother’s beautiful, dark hair and her father’s azure eyes. Himawari’s fluttering heartbeat fills the empty feeling in Sakura’s chest. She hands the girl back to her mother and the feeling returns. Sakura will never have children, she knows this; but there is nothing to stop her longing, otherwise. 

Sasuke is there, too, having chauffeured Naruto to the hospital from the airport. He extends his congratulations to Naruto and Hinata, and holds Himawari’s hand for a moment between his thumb and index finger. “I hope she takes after her mother,” Sasuke says, pointedly, and Naruto gives him a retaliatory shove on the way out. Sakura follows, hanging her white coat up on the hooks by the intern’s nook before leaving with the Uchiha. “Your shift ended an hour ago.”

Sasuke had taken to driving Sakura home after her late clinics, upon Izumi’s insistence that it is unsafe for a woman to travel alone at night. “Uzumaki-san needed help.” She readjusts her pleated slacks.

He rolls his eyes at her. “Drop the formality,” the Uchiha chastises, leaning over to open the car door for her, “we went to high school together. It’s pointless.”

Suddenly, she feels the fluttering again. From the passenger seat, Sakura watches Sasuke’s jaw clench and unclench in exasperation. “Okay,” she tests, “Sasuke-kun.”

His grip on the wheel relaxes. “That will do, Sakura.”

Her white dress shirt sticks to her back as she leans back in the leather seat. She rolls down the window, sticking her arm out and gripping the top of the roof. She’d almost forgotten how humid Konoha summers are, after so many years in the desert. “Was the summer always this insufferable?”

After a moment’s consideration, he says, “It was less insufferable four years ago, but the spring is always missed when it goes.”*

She tilts her head towards the window, her short tresses flying out with the breeze. “Does Sasuke-kun miss the spring when it goes?”

“More often than not.” The car slows to a stop outside of her apartment building. 

On a normal night, Sasuke would drop Sakura off and wait in his car until she opens her door. Today, though, she extends her invitation without shame. “Tea?” Sakura offers, without pretense. They crowd into her building’s small elevator with their arms brushing.

In the kitchen, the medical student untucks her dress shirt and sets the kettle to boil. She pours the boiling water into their tea cups the proper way, the grain of wood horizontal to both of them. “There’s no spring in Suna,” she divulges as the leaves steep, “I missed it too.”

Sakura can pinpoint the precise moment, in their subsequent months of tea-sharing, where she falls for him again. His sleeves are rolled up and his hair mussed, tired from a long day of work. Despite his exhaustion, he sits with her and listens to her tales of the nightmare patient from Unit 2. Then, Sasuke exhales a breath that isn’t quite a laugh, but is shaky enough to pass as one. A trembling breath is enough to shake the foundation of Sakura’s marriage, her loyalty to her husband, to its core. Ashamed, she washes their dishes after he leaves. When the guilt subsides, Sakura allows herself to be happy, because her life is finally full: of medicine, of friendship, of Sasuke. She is no longer living with a hollow chest. And besides, Sasori had still not written; and besides, Chiyo tells her that Deidara has moved into her marital bedroom, and now prepares miso of his own accord. Sakura can afford, at least, this type of simple, uncomplicated happiness.

One night, a loose dress strap falls from her shoulders as the kettle whistles. She brushes her growing locks out of her face first before attending to the issue, but Sasuke reaches over to put the strap back in place, resting his palm on her arm. She must have gaped at him with such awe, or with such tenderness, that she rendered him incapable of speech for a minute. “Your husband is fortunate,” he compliments when he’s regained his capacity, stubborn and blushing. Steam rises from the stove as she places her hand over his. In her kitchen, there is no need for surnames. In her kitchen, she takes his hand and they remain there, as only Sasuke and Sakura.

As Sasuke and Sakura, they visit his parents’ graves with Itachi and Izumi in November, on the anniversary of their death. As Sasuke and Sakura, they go to the shrine together and make blessings on New Year’s Eve. They become what’s unspoken.

When the air becomes unbearably heavy with the unspoken thing, Sasuke stands behind her near the counter, his warm breath tickling her neck. “I can’t,” Sakura refuses. 

“Why?”

“My husband.” She digs her nails into the flesh of her palm to strengthen her resolve.

The Uchiha steps away, leaning his elbows against her marble countertop. “Why are you loyal to a husband whose affections don’t belong to you?”

Sakura bites her lip. “Because he is my husband and I am his wife, do you understand?”

“No.”

“But--”

Charcoal eyes glare at her. “You’re making excuses. A wife stays at her husband’s home. You’re here in a far away city, studying a career in a profession that most women have no business in. How can you offer that as your explanation?”

“You come into my home and disrespect my marriage bed, and what? Why are you always trying to convince me of something? Not all of life is a political debate.” She turns the stove off. “Please,” Sakura begs, eyes glued to the floor, “leave me.” He makes the decision for her, and shuts the door quietly behind him when he goes. She cries herself to sleep, dizzy with an overwhelming sense of loss.

The next time she sees him, Miko spots her at Himawari’s second birthday. “Hello, Aunt Sakura,” Miko greets, prim and proper in her party dress. “My parents miss your company at our estate.”

“Only six and speaking like an old lady, Miko-chan?” Sakura asks, tickling her belly and freeing the girl of her propriety. The child dissolves into pleased giggles.

“Yeah, Aunt Sakura, why don’t you visit anymore?” she pouts, rubbing at her bandaged knees. “It’s so boring, you know!”

“Sakura,” says Sasuke, when he comes to retrieve his niece. 

Sakura is sectioning the girl’s hair off in threes behind her back. “I’m busy.” Miko fidgets excitedly, eager to return to her family.

“I’m sorry.”

She tucks one section beneath the other, twisting the locks into place. “Sorry for what?”

The tall man kneels before his niece, taking the elastic from her hand and giving it to Sakura. With a soft expression, he tells her, “For everything.” And that is enough for him to undo her.

* * *

A year after Sakura’s medical school graduation, her husband calls her for the first time. “The Konoha rain has done my wife justice, and we are eager to welcome you home, Sakura-sensei.” Sasori’s baritone reverberates through the telephone line while Sasuke’s left hand plays with the dangling rotary cable. “Grandmother Chiyo died in her sleep this morning.” 

The plate she balances in her arms falls to the ground with a devastating crash, spilling rice and fried fish across the kitchen tile. Her lover helps her navigate around the sharp shards of glass and sits her down at the table as she holds her head in her hands. What had Chiyo said in her last letter -- was it that she was waiting for the wildflowers to bloom? Was it that, by the time she would see Sakura next, she would be a proper doctor? Sakura swallows the growing lump in her throat.

Tsunade grants her leave with a deep-set frown on her face. “Please, offer my condolences to your family.” 

The next hour, she is speeding down a highway at Sasuke’s side. By sunset, they arrive at the Akasuna property. “So your wife finally returns after three years, and she brings a house guest for us to entertain,” Deidara complains to Sasori, peeved at the Uchiha’s presence.

Sakura turns to the blond, throwing her bags at his feet. “Yes, I do return. I believed my absence at medical school wouldn’t be an issue, with the way I’ve trusted you to keep my bed and husband warm, Deidara.”

“And she’s grown teeth, too!” Not so subtly, Sasuke elbows Deidara in the ribs when he goes to pick up Sakura’s luggage. “What disrespectful visitors we have, danna!”

“Sakura is not a visitor,” Sasori reminds his partner lightly.

“And I’ve always had teeth,” the doctor chimes in, turning to her husband. “Meet me in the courtyard in two hours.”

“Very well,” the redhead agrees. “Deidara, take Uchiha-san for dinner in two hours.” The young artist bristles, displeased at the idea of doing chores, but does not raise his voice in dissent.

Sakura shivers in her sundress as she waits outside for Sasori in front of an unsuspecting patch of grass. “My memory isn’t the best these days,” she mumbles apologetically, “I forgot how cold it gets at night in the desert.”

“What are you looking at?” He slips a warm wool cardigan over her shoulders.

She rolls her ankle and points to the patch of dirt with her foot. “Just a moment.” The bundle of dried and matted leaves slowly reveals itself, exploding in color as the fleshy orange flowers open up towards them.

“Grandmother loved this garden well,” Sasori says. “There is no greater romance than a desert flower. Perhaps that’s why she took to you so ardently.”

“She was waiting for the poppies,” Sakura tells him. “They lie dormant until rainfall.”

“They’re clever.”

She chuckles. “Well, not so clever. Escapist would be a better word.”

“So, where will you go, Sakura?” His gaze drops to the gentle hand placed on her stomach. “I doubt the villagers will be able to fathom a child of mine with midnight hair.”

Sakura presses the wedding band to the center of his palm, folding her husband’s fingers around it. “Anywhere the wind takes me. The father doesn’t know yet.”

They sit beside each other at the funeral, Sasori in a black suit, Sakura in a black kimono. Their lovers do not attend. As a good wife, she is at her husband’s side in prayer and in grief. In their garden, the poppies perish under the intensity of the Suna sun. Chiyo’s stone is set on a tall plateau of the estate, overlooking the rolling hills that give way to the wildflower bloom in late August. This is the last moment they share as husband and wife.

“I’ll tell them Akasuna Sakura has passed.” The redhead offers his third stick. 

Sakura goes to place her final incense stick beside his, unwavering. “You were a kind husband.”

He grants her a rare smile and tilts his head as if to ask, is that so? She nods. “You were a clever wife. I will miss the company of a woman who beat me at shogi so frequently.” Sakura snorts, despite herself. “I promise I won’t search for you.” In his final act of kindness towards her, he frees her of his family name. “Goodbye,” Sasori whispers into her hair as they descend the plateau, Sakura hanging onto his arm for balance. She releases him when they reach the bottom. Through his smile, she sees his sorrow and humility. “Haruno Sakura.”

* * *

In the end, they run away together on the wings of the metal bird. In a small fishing village at the edge of Fire Nation, Sakura buries her feet in the wet sand while her two-year old crawls up her back. Sasuke waves at them a few meters down on the shore, collecting seaweed for dinner. Their daughter squeals for her father, buzzing with eagerness. Sarada takes her steps, sopping wet sand with each clumsy toddle. She might fall, so Sakura follows after; but in this village, the sand is soft, not rocky, so her mind is free from fear. 

Living by the ocean does not desensitize Sakura to its beauty. Each time she watches the sunrise and sunset reflected in its surface, she’s reminded of Ino’s story, so she tells her best friend that she’s finally seen the ocean. Sasuke kneels so that Sarada can plant a wet kiss on his cheek. She understands the romance, the poetry of the Sun and the sea. 

“Anata, will you hurry?” Sakura asks, taking her daughter from the raven-haired man and running back to the boardwalk before high tide comes.

“Yes, yes,” is his terse reply. Unable to decide which parent to walk with, Sarada stands between them and takes each of their hands. Extending the length of their arms downwards, they follow behind their daughter with their backs hunched over. And in this, they are equals.

Her neighbors grow tomatoes in their yard that Sakura trades for ointments and balms, and the occasional annual check-up. Tomorrow morning, they will have the tomatoes with rice and fresh seaweed for breakfast, and in the afternoon they’ll venture into the neighboring town so Sakura can haggle with the local vendors. And the day after that, who knows? 

Sakura’s world is only as small as the beach, and the block she sets up her community health clinic. In their corner of the world, there is always food on the table; there is always ample time and ample possibility. In another, Naruto buys Hinata flowers on a Saturday. In another, her ex-husband wakes to his lover in the morning light of a dustbowl drought. 

Come the fall, she will be Uchiha Sakura; but for now, Haruno Sakura sits at the table across from the father of her child, and they share a pot of tea, even in the summer heat. Holding Sasuke’s hand, she is comfortable knowing that it is enough to be Sakura, of recent last name and more recent divorce. Fulfillment can sometimes, Sakura learns, be as simple as planting a new garden, or as mundane as making her partner a cup of tea. She does not wish for anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly can't tell you the amount of research that went into this, even though it might not seem like it. I hope, as always, readers of string theory enjoyed this exceedingly niche story. Upon review, I'm really happy many of you enjoyed my take on Sasori and Deidara here, in spite of their extramarital relationship. A̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶p̶i̶t̶a̶l̶i̶s̶m̶.̶
> 
> *Notes:  
> (1) A traditional Japanese way of proposing is for a man to ask a woman, "Will you make miso soup for me, every day?" Sakura saying she wouldn't mind is her way of saying yes.  
> (2) Danna is used to show that someone is your superior, but it's also a name that women used to refer to their husbands by.  
> (3) Sasuke's way of hinting that he missed Sakura, which she presses on because she likes to be litigious.


	5. heart of glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the war brings many things to Konoha; Sakura copes poorly. (1970s AU)
> 
> “He’s a war hero, now. So are you. It’s nice to have you home, Sasuke-kun. Welcome.”  
> “Things are different now. But -- I’m home, Sakura.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: Though the spirit and endgame of this story is Sasuke and Sakura, Sasori and Sakura are in a relationship throughout. A very large portion of this story is Sasori and Sakura.** 
> 
> If you're not into that, please feel free to not read. I wanted to challenge myself by writing something different and ask the question: what if Sakura hadn't fallen in love with Sasuke, first? Something like that.
> 
> Set in the 1970s, post-war between Konoha and Suna.

The day the Forever War ends, Sakura stands in the mess tent beside her boys, asking whether she can get a second ration of lotus root for a good patient in Bunker B. The announcement comes through the speakers in the encampment, along with the paradoxical statement: that they had won, and Konoha would be withdrawing. Amidst the rumble, she snatches the canned ration and gifts it to her wounded soldier, asleep in his bed, blissfully unaware of Konoha’s surrender.

The aftermath of the war brings many things to Konoha: the Suna daily newspaper; revenue from copper mines; an abundance of jade and opal; disco; and Sasori. The new trading program between Suna Hospital and Konoha General had promoted the older man ahead of Sakura, despite her excellent track record, as Co-chief Surgical Resident. Bitter at sharing her well-earned title with a stranger, Sakura vents to Ino over lunch.

“I don’t understand, Forehead,” the blonde admits. “It’s understandable that you’re upset, but you’re barely twenty-seven. You have ample time to become Chief of Surgery.”

The young surgeon frowns. “No, Ino, it’s the _principle_ ,” she says, pressing her hands together for emphasis. “You know how much time I spend at KG! And I have the best time for all the common operations, and the best bedside manner. I was personally trained and handpicked by Tsunade-shishou.”

“Speaking of Senju-sama, wasn’t another Chief appointed in her place?”

“Co-chief,” Sakura laments, disappointed.

“The woman practically invented the surgical techniques you perform,” Ino says, matter-of-fact, “but I doubt she’s complaining as much as you are about her demotion.”

The pink-haired woman shakes her head. “Let me brood!” she whines.

“I am,” is her best friend’s short response. Pursing her lips, the blonde elaborates, “For example, not once have I commented on your new haircut. I understand you have a habit of cutting your hair short as an act of mourning. Please refrain from doing so in the future without consulting me first.”

Sakura’s hands fly up to her short bob. “You don’t like it?”

“You’re beautiful and exude divine feminine energy,” Ino says lazily, “or whatever the magazines say nowadays. Your hair tells me that you feel threatened by change and want to assert control or something like that. My point is, maybe it’s time to focus on something that isn’t your career.”

“You’re right,” the doctor agrees, holding her chin between her thumb and index finger pensively. “I should open myself to the prospect of a hobby. The studio near me is offering classes in photography and letting students use their dark room, maybe--”

“Don’t be daft,” the young woman replies, growing impatient. “You graduated medical school, didn’t you?” Ino rests her head against the wall, her platinum ponytail bobbing in the air, looking more university cheerleader than recent mother of one. “Why are you single?” she asks pointblank, assessing the young surgeon’s appearance. “Those new things they have you wearing are kind of cute. They compliment your eyes.”

The surgeon’s frown deepens. “Well,” says Sakura, hiding behind her cleverness, “you’re married, and not to me, so.” 

“I mean, you’re surrounded by doctors all day! How come you can’t find a husband?”

The rose-haired woman rolls her eyes, stirring her drink and clanging her spoon against the rim. “I am a doctor, Ino-pig. Why do I need to marry one?”

“There’s more to life than medicine,” Ino insists. “Remember, last month at Naruto’s? How all us girls were standing with our husbands and you were off to the side with Naruto and Sasuke-kun, and Sai started calling you the old maid--”

“Would you like some coffee with your milk, Sakura?” The intrusion comes in the form of a saucer and tall mug, which clamor against the handle of her spoon and cause the rest of the glassware on the table to vibrate.

“No, Akasuna-senpai,” she says, managing a polite, close-lipped smile. “I would have asked.”

Sakura’s best friend shifts in her seat, not bothering to hide her excitement. “Sakura, will your new friend join us?” she asks, batting her lashes at the red-headed resident.

“I would, but I don’t recall Sakura extending such an invitation.” Sasori’s vacant eyes light up briefly, with an emotion approximating vague amusement.

“Likely because I extended no such invitation,” Sakura bites back, nudging Ino’s ankle with her own beneath the table.

“So contemptible, Sakura,” he condescends. “Is that any way for a medical professional to speak to her superior?”

“Don’t be so familiar with your co-chief, Akasuna-senpai,” the young surgeon retorts. “Anyway, you’re not my superior. Please address me properly, even outside of the hospital.”

Sasori pauses for a second, straightening his back and lifting his saucer from the table. “Very well--” his scrub top seems to taunt her, obscenely pristine and free of any and all wrinkles-- “Christmas cake. Do you normally take hour-long lunch breaks? Or do you only take them when med-surg is understaffed?”

“No, only on days where I finish my patient rounds and finish my calls to their families early.” Her grip around the mug tightens. “Not that you’d know much about patient calls, correct?”

“That’s intern work.”

The young surgeon’s face twitches into a scowl. “We’re doctors, not butchers.”

“You women are all the same--” he clicks his tongue in response-- “sentimental.” Sasori slides a file towards her where his cup sat a moment before. “For when you’re done with your too-long lunch--” he pauses again, for emphasis-- “Christmas cake.”

Too angry to form words, she bares her teeth at him sarcastically, swatting him away with the manila folder. “See, this is why you’re single,” Ino offers her constructive criticism as the door slams shut behind Sasori. 

Sakura’s twenty-eight hour work days begin with stealing Sasori’s paper to complete the number puzzle before he can, out of pure contempt, and are punctuated with her co-chief’s home calls about freak patient theories that she entertains, in spite of the odd hour, because Sasori, besides being an arrogant, rude narcissist, is the only resident at the hospital as brilliant as she is. “It might be psychosomatic,” Sakura suggests at three in the morning.

“Stop referring our patients away to Psych, Haruno,” chides the older man over the phone. 

From the tone of his voice, Sakura surmises that he’s pacing back and forth. “Show me the data,” she says simply, pushing down the receiver abruptly. She picks up after the third ring.

“Don’t do that,” Sasori says, annoyance bleeding through his words.

“Stop treating your patients like riddles,” the young surgeon fires back, “if you have a hypothesis, you need data to support it. As you should have learned in first-year Biology.” Somehow, she can hear him seething through the landline. “Look, Internal Medicine prescribed an analgesic. Her MRI and CAT scans were negative. You can’t just slice as you see fit.”

Staring the retaliatory high-resolution MRI Sasori orders two days later, Sakura decides she won’t be outdone. She churns out colorful diagnoses for their most difficult cases: a patient who can hear her own heartbeat, she calls superior semicircular canal dehiscence; a patient with a decade-long stomachache, she calls lymphocytic gastritis. 

“Bullshit,” he says of her latest diagnosis, brows furrowed in disbelief.

“The PET scan says otherwise,” Sakura chimes, scheduling the operation for Thursday.

But with Sasori, there is always room for criticism. “How can someone so bright lack the thinking skills to criticize her government?” he adds, going for effect.

“You’re not the only person who served in the war,” she replies, unblinking.

“The war was never in Konoha,” the older surgeon maintains, “some of us had no choice. It wasn’t for service, but for survival.” He glares at the new entry on the chalkboard. “I’m sure you stood and saluted your flag every morning. In Suna, we had no flag to salute.” Sasori moves to write a new operation below hers for an ICU patient. “Your soldiers had burned all of ours.”

When Sasori blanks during surgery, Sakura glances over his shoulder and sees the military insignia carved and inked into the chest of the man on the table. She learns the difference between service and survival through his uncharacteristic hesitation. “Scalpel,” Sakura commands, holding her hand out to one of the ER nurses, marking the first act of kindness between them.

Sakura’s phone almost rings off of the receiver as she returns to her apartment. “I’m wrong quite often, outside of medicine,” she apologizes immediately. “I was wrong.”

The man on the other end of the line clears his throat. “Nice time today, Haruno,” Sasori compliments. “You’re quite some woman.”

“Yes, Akasuna-senpai,” she says, flipping open her notepad. “We’ll need to divert the duodenal contents from the stomach for Tanaka-san.”

“Tanaka-san?” Sakura listens to the rustling of papers. “Right, gastritis.”

“What would you recommend?”

“Seeing as you’ve scheduled it already, you should know the answer, Haruno.”

She shakes her head. “What would you recommend, Akasuna-senpai?”

“We’ll divert the isoperistaltic jejunal segment on Thursday,” Sasori humors her. “Be at our office before rounds, we have to sign off on clearance forms.”

“Good night,” Sakura says. Hearing the dial tone instead of a reciprocal address, she lies on her back and looks up at the ceiling, as she usually does, even in hospital on-call rooms (like she does on Fridays and Saturdays, and stares up at fluorescent white canvas and notes the uneven strokes of carpentry). She notices for the first time that there is a crack; not just one, but two webs of them, like the roots of a tree, branching to the wall. All the time she had spent in bed, flat on her back, and she had never seen the veins of her own ceiling. Unable to sleep because of the realization, she runs through the day’s procedure in her head until she drifts off, like shadows in the ocean’s surface.

“There’s more to life than medicine,” she hears Ino tell her; and then she hears a child’s laughter; and then she hears the morning salute.

* * *

Sakura crosses one leg over the other, loosening her seatbelt. She grimaces at the way the leather seat peels off the skin of her thigh as she reaches to bring the sun visor down. Flipping the mirror open, she burrows through her purse. The surgeon balances a department store eye palette on her lap next to a tube of mascara, carefully applying the light green pigment over her lid up to her brow bone. When the car slows to a stop a red light, she opens the tube of mascara, coating her lashes in black. She catches the driver’s glance through the visor mirror. “Stop staring,” Sakura commands as she moves to work on her waterline.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Sasori scoffs, rolling down the window to toss a cigarette butt out. 

She catches his glance again as she smothers a peach gloss on her bottom lip. “Eyes on the road, Akasuna-senpai,” she chastises.

The man reaches behind his ear for a strategically placed smoke and places it between his lips. Returning his hand to the steering wheel, he leans towards her. “If you’re done, why don’t you make yourself useful?” he asks, the cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Didn’t the Surgeon General say smoking is bad for you five years ago?” Sakura reprimands, nonetheless finding the lighter on the dashboard for her companion.

“When I’m Surgeon General, the first thing I’ll do is redact that statement,” Sasori says between puffs of smoke.

“When I’m Surgeon General,” she parrots, “the first thing I’ll do is ban smoking in hospitals, to spite you.”

“How distasteful.”

“Akasuna-senpai,” Sakura adds, grinning cheekily. The hand-rolled tobacco holds him over for the rest of the drive to the newly renovated Namikaze Center, an elegant venue tucked in a corner of Konoha away from the city center. Sasori does not offer his arm to her, but she takes it anyway, struggling to walk on the uneven cobblestone in her white platforms. “I’m taller than you,” she says, to recover some of her dignity. She gazes down at the top of his head with a sense of righteous victory.

“Careful,” he warns, deadpan and withdrawing from her touch without warning, “lest you fall and I leave you stranded.” 

After standing in place for a moment, Sakura realizes that Sasori might be testing her, to see if she’ll reach over again, and she does out of necessity. She slips her arm underneath his elbow and he steadies her before they continue their trek. The vibrant green fabric of her butterfly sleeves sits against the black wool of his suit, a spring breeze causing the skirt of her mini dress to flutter. The breeze wafts the light scent of sandalwood from Sasori to Sakura, who pauses at the fragrance. “Aren’t you warm in that?” she asks as they turn the corner, approaching the building. “Not that I’m looking after you. Konoha’s cooler than Suna, but it gets rather hot on a sunny spring afternoon like this. And we’ll be in the courtyard for the opening ceremony -- you might overheat. Though I suspect there might be a coatcheck, let’s see, well--”

“Sakura-chan!” a bright voice announces as the two enter the hall. “Looking great!”

“Don’t stand too close,” Sakura jokes, noting the bright orange of her friend’s suit. “It’s like looking at the sun.”

Naruto smiles at her, his chuckles reverberating through the reception area from the back of his throat. “It’s my favorite color,” he insists, stepping to the side and gesturing to the men beside him. “Sakura-chan, meet Gaara. He’s next in line for Kazekage. Gaara, Sakura is Chief Surgical Resident at Konoha Hospital.”

“Co-chief,” corrects Sasori dully, nodding his head at the other redhead. “Gaara.”

“Sasori,” Gaara returns, looking exceedingly bored.

“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura greets after bowing her head to the Suna diplomat, who instead preoccupies himself with adjusting Naruto’s tie while Sasori goes to partake of the courtyard’s open bar.

The raven-haired man hovers over her, carefully extending his left arm towards her. “Sakura,” he says, and she studies the dish in his hand. “Naruto mentioned you were coming straight from work, so Ino prepared a plate for you.” 

“Thank you for bringing it over, Sasuke-kun. That’s very kind of you.” Though aware of her hunger, Sakura looks skeptically at the vibrant seasoning of the food with hesitation. 

“It’s saffron,” Sasuke states, the back of his hand brushing against hers as he bestows the plate upon her. “It’s a rare spice from Suna. The catering is their traditional cuisine.”

“Hm, right,” she says, still skeptical, “to show diplomacy.” 

“It’s not spicy,” he clarifies, finally. “You can eat it.”

Sakura blinks at him, bemused, skin still tingling from the brief contact. “You--”

“I’ve eaten many of your bentos,” the Uchiha says, a ghost of a smile on his face.

“Of course. That feels so long ago,” Sakura says wistfully, hiding her growing blush with the palm of her hand. “Sometimes I wish for those simple days of cleaning Naruto’s doodles off of Sasuke-kun’s desk after class, or shouldering the weight of our group work in Arithmetic.”

Sasuke huffs a laugh, his warm breath moving the few strands of hair against her forehead slightly. “You make light of my contributions, Sakura.”

“Naruto will settle the score,” she laughs back, turning to her right, only to be met with empty space. “Huh. Where did he go?”

“Likely making diplomatic ties with the future Kazekage in a more private venue,” Sasuke supplies, his face blank.

“Ah, yes--” Sakura pops a bite-sized piece of chicken into her mouth-- “the traditional diplomatic exchange of saliva in a bathroom stall. So grateful to entrust our nation’s future to Uzumaki-sama. Let’s hope he does his best!” Her former classmate raises his left fist in the air slightly in response, smirk deepening. She can’t contain the smile blossoming on her lips.

“That idiot’s in over his head,” he comments, but there’s no hint of malice where there used to be.

“He’s a war hero, now,” Sakura says. “So are you. It’s nice to have you home, Sasuke-kun. Welcome.”

“Things are different now.” Sasuke stares at the food on her dish determinedly. “But -- I’m home, Sakura.” His eyes meet hers in a moment of quiet intimacy. Reveling in the personable silence for a moment, his attention is torn away from her by his older brother. “I’ll find you later,” the Uchiha reassures her.

Reclining in the garden under the shade of a cherry blossom tree, she empties her plate and nurses a crystal glass of plum wine. “Do you always drink this much?” Sasori joins her on the bench, holding a half-empty tumbler and bottle close to him.

“Only out of habit, as Tsunade-shishou’s apprentice,” she explains, shifting to make space for him. Sakura takes a long sip from her glass and raises a thin eyebrow at the older man as he refills his drink. Sasori materializes a second glass, somewhat magically, and pours a tall drink, pushing it her way. “You pour with the label up,” she remarks.

He shrugs, bringing the rim of his drink against hers. “It’s the only way to pour.”

“What did I tell you about staring?” Sakura reminds him as they share their third drink. 

He returns her gaze, studying her features with scientific curiosity. “You clean up well.”

Without missing a beat, she retorts, “You don’t.” 

“You have a mean streak, Haruno.” The space around them echoes with the garage sound of an anti-war punk band Naruto had taken a liking to recently. “Music was better when it sounded pretty.”

“Only around weirdos like you,” the young surgeon says, leaning over to prepare their fourth round. “Your age is showing, old man.”

“I’m only five years older than you.” The light of the dying sun filters through the gaps in the cherry blossoms, illuminating the auburn strands of Sasori’s hair as she hands him his drink.

“Are you?” she asks. “Yet you demand that I call you _senpai_? That’s very embarrassing for you.” Sakura holds her glass by the stem, swirling the wine contemplatively. “It’s amazing how little we know about each other. We’re basically strangers.”

“It’s better to know nothing.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I know nothing,” Sakura argues, defensive, the slight slur of her words softening her tone. “I know plenty of things, like the way you write referrals in blue ink, and patient charts exclusively in black. And when you scrub in--” she waves her pinky in the air-- “you always start with your last digit.” She drinks from her glass, savoring the aroma of the wine. “The night before an operation, you call me twice: once before dinner, and once before bedtime. You crack your fingers when you’re impatient or thinking through something--” Sakura gestures at Sasori’s thumb, resting on his index finger’s knuckle-- “like that.”

After a minute of punk-rock interlude, he finishes his drink. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“You,” Sasori says, leaning backwards and draping his arms over the bench’s railing, “use one pen at a time, and only one pen. It’s the same pen you write with when you steal my newspaper in the morning. You have a brioche at the beginning of your shift, no matter what time it is; strawberry jam on operation days, plain otherwise. When you’re nervous, you babble--” Sakura opens her mouth, ready to interject, but he taps her shoulder to stop her-- “like a schoolgirl.”

Bristling at his observations, the young surgeon bashfully looks away. She glances at him through her eyelashes, half-annoyed and half-flattered that someone noticed her. Sasori’s unwavering gaze makes her heart beat frantically in her chest. “Am I nervous, Akasuna-senpai?” she challenges, regardless of the warmth pooling in her stomach.

The older man tilts his head to the side, brushing her reddening earlobe with his thumb. “You are.” He tugs on the lobe gently. “It’s okay.”

Sakura yawns, bringing her hand to her ear. A wave of exhaustion washes over her. “Alright,” the woman acquiesces, “if you say so.”

“You’re tired,” Sasori acknowledges. “Let’s get you home.” He stands and helps her up, offering his arm for support and holding her purse under the other. She nods her thanks, happy to leave and arrive home at her bed as soon as possible.

“Headed out already?” a new voice intones. “I was hoping we could speak, Sasori. Father would like to know the status of the joint residency’s progress.” Gaara stands before them with his hands in his pockets, disinterest plastered on his face.

“Same, Sakura-chan! We haven’t partied in forever!” the Hokage’s son exclaims, placing his palms on her shoulders. She blinks up at him hazily, fighting the urge to rub her eyes and ruin her makeup.

“Sakura’s tired, Naruto,” the Uchiha cuts in, unimpressed with his best friend’s lack of awareness.

“I’m driving her home,” explains the older redhead, “we shared a ride here.”

“You’ve been drinking.” Sasuke gives him a stern look. “I’m leaving for the Uchiha district now. I’ll drive her back, it’s on the way.”

“Go on, Sasori, that gives us time to discuss the urgent matter,” the Suna diplomat says, directing his attention to Sakura, resting on the surgeon’s shoulder, and her belongings in his hand. A more astute Sakura would have probably been embarrassed by the scene, and by Naruto’s apparent delight in the drama. 

In her tipsy state, she retrieves her purse and waves it at her co-chief, unashamed. “Go on, Akasuna-senpai,” she says.

“Go on, Sasuke,” Naruto chimes in, wanting his share of the joke and guiding Sakura by the wrist to where his rival stands, suit blazer hanging off his square shoulders. “Be safe or whatever.”

The raven-haired man places his arm around Sakura, holding her close to his chest to steady her as they walk to the car. Vaguely, she notes that he opens the door for her and buckles her in. She stares at the flashing lights on the highway as she surrenders to sleep.

* * *

The young surgeon wakes with the first ray of sunlight through her window in the morning in her bed, tucked carefully under the covers. Walking to her kitchen for a glass of water after brushing her teeth, Sakura notices, first, her heels, neatly lined up next to the door; second, the pair of men’s dress shoes next to them. Third, she places her high school classmate sprawled across her couch, resting his head on an overstuffed throw pillow. So Sakura drinks her water and ties her apron around her back, resigning herself to the task of breakfast.

Sasuke wakes peacefully with no look of confusion strewn about his face. First, he sees Sakura in the kitchen, and mutters a good morning to her; second, the man makes his way down the corridor to the restroom, presumably to freshen up; third, he pours himself a cup of the tea from the kettle Sakura had set on the kitchen table, taking a seat while he waits for her to finish cooking. The steamed white rice comes first, garnished with pickled plum; then, the miso soup; then, the salted grilled mackerel. “Thank you for looking after me,” Sakura says as she sets the final dish in front of him, her petal pink locks hanging over her face. “I apologize for any inconvenience, Sasuke-kun.”

“It’s no problem, Sakura,” he replies. “You’d always look after us when we got into trouble.”

The young surgeon studies the sharp contours of her childhood crush’s face, allowing herself to remember, once more, those days of innocence; when Sakura would jump rope and hula hoop while the boys wrestled and fought at lunch, and she’d wait after school for them to finish cleaning the hallways. “Yes,” she agrees, “especially in Arithmetic.”

Sasuke’s laughter is a warm thing, and not as foreign as Sakura expects it to be. “Itadakimasu,” says Sasuke below his breath, readying his chopsticks. He pulls the mackerel apart, placing half in his bowl and half in hers. He tries the fish first; then, the miso soup; then, the rice with plum. 

“The mackerel is fresh from the river,” she informs him, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the waterfront from her apartment. “I buy from the fisherman’s wharf on Sundays. They’re still open, after all these years and the war, can you believe?” Sakura stirs the miso in its bowl. “As long as the river is there, so is their livelihood, I suppose.”

“Things have been busy,” Sasuke says, “but I’ll make the trip with Itachi next weekend. He has a taste for seafood.”

“He seems like the type.” She smiles politely. “How is Itachi-san?”

Reluctant to answer, her former classmate instead drinks his soup. “Your cooking has improved,” the man compliments, and Sakura flushes. “A long way from onigiri bento.”

“If Sasuke-kun found my cooking in high school so lackluster, then perhaps he should have spared himself the torture and rejected me outright.” Sakura sighs, giving way to his gentle teasing. 

“No,” Sasuke recounts, “I enjoy onigiri bento.”

Aware of her rapidly reddening face, she ducks her head in front of the steaming rice. “Because I made you so many. Completely avoidable.”

“No,” he repeats, “unavoidable. Once you prepared a meal for me, I had to finish it.” The Uchiha holds his bowl, now empty. “This much is the same.”

“Oh,” Sakura says, lamely, unable to formulate a proper sentence, “I’m glad, then.” She tries again, “If you aren’t particularly averse to my cooking now, I’d be happy to send a lunch for you or Naruto once a week, on my day off.”

“Surgeons get days off?” Sasuke asks, rising from the table. “Thank you,” he says, dark eyes peering into her emerald ones.

“Yes, of course we do,” she replies, before she realizes, by the lines of his face, that he’s joking. “Well -- the offer still stands.” Sakura walks him to the door, where he slips his shoes on and turns to her before he goes.

“I’ll see you later, Sakura,” Sasuke says. The words are definite enough to be a promise. Then, he steps out without a second glance behind him.

The call from Sasori comes soon after. “I’m coming over,” the doctor states, with no room for refusal, “the charts are ready. I’ll bring the books.” 

Mentally preparing herself for hours of pouring over medical texts, Sakura considers running out for a coffee before deciding against it. “Let yourself in, I’ll leave the door unlocked,” she tells him, hanging the phone back on the wall. She washes the dishes and hops in the shower to rid herself of the smell of alcohol. She emerges from the bathroom in a fresh change of clothes consisting of a loose sweatshirt from her university days and a pair of worn jeans.

“It’s achalasia,” Sasori greets, intently focusing on the text, not bothering to spare her appearance a moment of attention.

“Statistically, that’s almost impossible,” she pushes back, finding her place beside him.

“Almost impossible,” the older man says, “which means there is a small likelihood that it is possible.”

Sakura rolls her eyes. “Just admit you want to cut him open.”

“You didn’t see his test results.”

Scrounging the now-full coffee table for said test results, Sakura instead finds a to-go cup of coffee, almost as light as the moon, with a page of the Suna paper folded beneath it. The familiar sound of Sasori’s joints popping alerts her to the presence of her companion once more. “What is it?” she asks, solving the puzzle and handing it over to him, though she can guess it’s certainly not the statistical impossibility of achalasia. “Are you nervous?” Sakura presses, the locks of her hair brushing against the back of his neck as she leans over for a glance of his paper.

Unlike her prior guest, Sasori is unforgiving. Sakura knows this by the way he bites when she kisses him. Or perhaps, she thinks, when they are in her bedroom resting after the tirade, unyielding is a better word. She lights his cigarette once more when he rolls over, resting his elbow against her mattress with his cheek to his palm. She watches the smoke float out of her small window. “It’s achalasia,” he says again, and Sakura takes his half-smoked bogie and ashes it on the windowsill. By the time she returns to bed, he’s found another. “Sakura.” And she’s already reached for the matches.

* * *

“What is this?” The absence of flower arrangements and large banners prompts Sakura’s suspicion.

Popping out from behind Ino’s beige screen door, Naruto proclaims, “An intervention!”

The young surgeon guffaws, almost dropping the heavy box in her arms. Theatrically, Ino emerges at the top of her staircase, dressed tastefully in aquamarine linens. “We need to talk,” declares the housewife, her doting husband by her side.

“So, you’re not pregnant?” Sakura asks, torn between amusement and outrage. “You invented an entire baby to have this conversation -- Ino-pig. Really?” She places the package on the floor beside her. “Sasori and I even purchased something off your fake registry.”

“Where is Akasuna-san?” Sai inquires, monotone.

Impervious to Naruto and Ino’s prodding glances, she kneels down to inspect the present. “Somewhere, busy.”

“Out cheating? Remember the time he cheated on you, Forehead?”

Taking out her keys to cut through the wrapping tape, she replies, “Which time?”

“What,” Naruto says, stunned.

“Do you _hear_ yourself?” the blonde almost yells. “You’re so casual. The foundation for a happy relationship is loyalty, Sakura. It’s that simple.”

Sakura opens the flaps of the cardboard box. She raises her shoulders, up and down. “It happens.”

“Okay, what about the time he let an intern scrub-in in your place because he was angry you met with Chiyo-sama?”

The pink-haired woman lays the pieces of wood out before her, studying the building instructions that came with the furniture. “We made amends when I threw all of his clothing out the window.”

“That’s not -- that’s not how it works, Sakura-chan,” the Hokage’s son lectures, looking rather sage-like from his recent expedition abroad.

“It’s a luxury crib.” Sakura counts the parts again, spreading them beside the instructions to visualize the object better. “It has wheels, for easy transport. The salesman said it’s a nice blend of pine and poplar from the northern forests, you know, where we used to go hiking in the summer?”

“What about the time--”

“Ino-pig,” the surgeon says, “let me ask you something.” Curious about the poplar and pine, Ino sits on the floor beside her. “I can tell when something is unhealthy. I’m a medical professional. So obviously, my relationship is unhealthy. But--” Sakura reaches for a golden lock of hair-- “have you ever had really, really good sex?”

Today, the long locks of Sakura’s hair catch on the latch of their apartment door when she steps back in. She tugs away, the strands escaping her and leaving her in much pain. Tired and confronted with the feeling of hunger, she mixes leftover natto with white rice and makes a mental note to buy groceries. A door opens in the periphery and she freezes. Sasori meanders out of the bathroom, hair still damp from the shower. He almost doesn’t notice her in the hallway, so preoccupied with his routine. He stops, too, when he passes her. Sakura inhales as they make eye contact; she doesn’t realize that she’d been holding her breath. She contemplates what greeting would be enough to merit a response, but can only manage a low hum of acknowledgement. 

Taking this as an invitation, he leans in. Dark freckles glance at her, freckles she’s counted and memorized on a face she’d traced with her hands in the dark of a February morning, so she’d always have the planes of flesh imprinted in her memory while the world is sleeping, with the secrecy of a late afternoon shower. “You’re home early,” Sasori comments, bending over to kiss her on the cheek.

“I am,” she says, pressing a kiss of her own to the corner of his mouth. It’d been a moment since she was last able to see Sasori’s eyes in the natural sunlight. She had forgotten that they were hazel, not brown; and golden opal, in the sunset. “We’re shades of each other,” Sakura observes, as her boyfriend’s scarlet hair dries and lightens.

“I have news,” he tells her, voice level. 

News, she thinks, not good or bad. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’m leaving for Suna at the end of the month. They asked me to fill in as Interim Chief of Surgery.” Sasori watches her face contort into an expression of disdain, unflinching. “It’s only temporary until they find a permanent candidate.”

“Why can’t you be honest with me?” Sakura demands. “I was offered that position a month ago. It’s interim, but that’s only nominal. They want full relocation for a minimum of two years.”

“Why did you reject them?”

She stammers, speechless. “I just-- I was thinking of, thinking--” Thinking of things like friends and baby showers, and their shared one-bedroom apartment, fifteen minutes walking from the riverbank, perfect for hanami in the spring, and watching the first sunrise on the New Year.

“You should have accepted.” Sasori considers her for a moment, with her head bowed and fists balled in her lap on the sofa. “I thought you wanted to be Chief of Surgery?”

“I wish you had told me,” Sakura admits. “Even though I know it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“You didn’t tell me,” he reminds her. “This is the first I’m hearing about it. I would have supported you.”

She rests her palms on the tops of her thighs flat, twirling a loose thread from her skirt around her ring finger. “What can I say? I can’t keep you.”

They have dinner at the diner next to the hospital. Here, a year ago, Sasori tucked Sakura’s hair behind her ear, so she kissed his hand that lingered against her cheek; because she craved him, and his hand that did not belong, but remained anyway.

It seems like all of their memories are muddled for her, that they all occurred in the course of one long and romantic night. Was it this: that they were walking to get dessert at midnight and Sasori had kissed her in the middle of the street? Or were they wandering aimlessly when Sakura declared a quest for anmitsu? When their order was prepared, the cashier grinned at them and said, “Here you go, _you two_.” And she had laughed. Sakura thought they must look very silly, to everyone else. It was the summer of love, and she had laughed because she was so happy -- what could she have possibly done to deserve this? To be beside somebody, finally, where the days bled into each other like the scenes in a long work of fiction.

She says she’ll call him first thing after her shift at 7:55pm, but falls asleep at the kitchen table. At 7:56pm, she gets up to answer the phone. “You’re late,” Sasori says, before launching into a prognosis.

Sakura burns alone, in the shower, in the operating room, in the tea room of the Hyuga family estate, overlooking the large lake. She looks at all of her friends with their partners longingly and coos at Hinata’s round belly, and tells her peer about oakwood cribs from Suna, that Sasori had had shipped over as a gift. Excusing herself for dessert, she goes to sit by herself by the water. The chiffon cake is light on her tongue. She wonders about the taste of saffron and the protocol for her surgeries next week. She feels, rather than hears, Sasuke approach her, armed with milk tea and expensive china. “From Ino?” Sakura guesses from the perfect shade of her tea.

“No,” Sasuke replies. She smiles at his memory, like an elephant’s. “I’m about to head out, if you need a ride.” The doctor almost stands, but he ushers her back to her seat. “The tea, Sakura.” So they stay while she finishes her drink in companionable silence.

In the car home, Sakura sings along to a country ballad about thunderstorms and heartbreak on the radio. Sasuke listens, nodding his head silently along to the rhythm. She watches the hills of Konoha spread out, covered by the blanket of darkness. “Remember, we got lost here once? We were so young then.” The forest had seemed so vast. “Naruto was out cold. You were in pain, but all I could do was hold your hand.”

“You helped,” says Sasuke, the calm baritone of his voice tethering her back to the present. His knuckles brush her left shoulder as he opens the passenger seat window. “A little air,” he explains. 

Sakura’s skin appreciates the air, with the way it heats up from the contact. Her short hair floats around her, whipping with the breeze. Looking more closely, she can make out the details of each tree branch or spot a lone pebble on the side of the road near a streetlight.

It takes Sasori four rings to pick up. “Sakura,” he greets, voice still heavy with sleep. “It’s early.”

“What does Suna look like?”

Sasori is quiet for a long time. Suspecting he’d gone back to sleep, Sakura almost hangs up. But as the doctor pulls her ear away from the phone, she hears him beginning. “It’s five in the morning,” he begins. “No, exactly one minute past five. The sun is rising near the dunes in the east. In the west, there’s a bazaar and families are setting up their wares for the day. It’s not too far from the hospital.”

“Do you--” she gulps, trying to swallow the growing lump in her throat-- “drive to work in the morning?”

“Mm,” Sasori hums his affirmation.

“Do you eat breakfast?”

“I have a smoke in the car,” he replies. Sakura imagines him banging a pack of menthols upside down on a marble countertop.

“And who lights your cigarette?”

Sasori inhales deeply. “I do.” She sets the phone down on the receiver and cries.

* * *

Sakura documents images that resonate with her, for her own sanity, most days: the stems of garden plants collapsing underneath the weight of their flowers in front of her home, a cheap teapot filled to the top, spilling over onto the table at the slightest tilt. She is the stem, the teapot; her love, the flowers, the tea.

Her hectic work schedule is almost enough to distract her from the fact that she’s gone two weeks without speaking to Sasori. “He didn’t need a reason to leave,” she tells Ino over coffee. The sleeves of her scrubs are rolled up to accommodate the summer heat. Sometimes, Sakura understands, people just fall out of step. She watches Sasori’s retreating back, wondering why he’s forgotten her. She almost catches up, almost, but they’re still out of sync. And she’s there, watching again, standing still. He’s so far from her, he’s almost at the horizon. Sakura wonders about chasing after him, meeting him in Suna, but she doesn’t think she’s ever cared enough to. She’s tired. She then wonders about his return, but the surgeon in her knows he won’t turn down the position. “Every time I think I’m better,” Sakura says, rolling her neck to decompress the vertebrae, “I end up here. Stationary.”

“Life isn’t supposed to feel like a movie, Sakura,” Ino cautions her. “This drama isn’t real life. And by the way, it isn’t love, either.”

A conference, of all things, is what brings Sasori back to her. After three days of presentations, they find a moment alone. For thirty minutes, they sit across from each other, scrolling down a menu that they’d never bothered to look at. “There’s persimmons at home,” the rose-haired woman says, running her finger down a column, “they’re perfectly ripe.”

“Lucky me,” Sasori intones, dry as the desert.

“Lucky you.” Sakura grins, a smile so wide the menu can’t hide it. For some reason, falling back into the rhythm they used to have together was so easy at the diner. He reaches for her hand. Taken aback by the unexpected gesture, she stops in the middle of a sentence she can’t bring herself to remember. “The foliage is pretty this time of year, isn’t it?”

The older man leans close to her face. “Yes,” Sasori says, admiring the hue of her hair. “Do I pass?” Their coffee grows cold as they banter, debating the efficacy of neurosurgery in treating psychological neuroses. “Psych must be happy, with you giving them all the good cases.”

When the bill is paid, Sasori thumbs through a medical text and sits cross legged on Sakura’s living room floor. Sakura neatly slices the deep red-orange of a persimmon and throws them on a plate, which her boyfriend balances on his knee. He waits to reach for a piece the precise moment she does, so she pushes his hand away. “Ugh,” Sakura complains, “I hate when you do this.”

“I wanted to hold your hand,” the redhead says innocently, but she sees through the facade.

“Sure you did,” she says, sarcastic, before biting into the sweet fruit. “I wonder how you managed in Suna, with no one to bother or cut fruit for you or light your cigarette.”

“I managed well--” his hand finds hers, twining their sticky fingers together-- “and I will manage well.”

Her jaw drops. “And this is how you tell me-- no, don’t.”

“Sakura--”

“Don’t,” Sakura hiccups, months of painful repression surfacing. “How can you sit with my fruit in your lap and hand in yours and tell me you’re not coming back?”

“Suna’s not far,” Sasori deflects, “not once have you come to visit me.”

“I would have come if I were invited,” she protests through watery cries. “Do you even think of me?”

“Often.”

“But not very much,” Sakura says, “clearly. It’s so easy for you, you must not care about me at all.”

Sasori tuts, squeezing her hand. “You know that’s not true. You’re being emotional.”

“I’m allowed to be emotional,” she spits. It seems as though the ceiling is spinning. Sakura crawls into Sasori’s lap, looking for an anchor. She traces the shape of the medical journal’s last symbol, its gaping mouth pointing upward, towards the empty bottle they used to pickle vegetables in when they lived together. “This hurts me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Isn’t that enough?”

Memories are all Sakura has in the apartment. On a rainy morning, she summons her favorite memory to the surface: one where Sakura was groggy in bed, squinting her eyes at him in a lamp-lit room. Sasori chuckled to himself and rushed to his presentation, moving quickly to turn off the light, deciding last minute to kiss her disgruntled face. He pushed his nose against her cheek, then his lips to the surface. Sakura turned her face slightly to kiss him on the lips and he kissed her again, and again. He ducked out with the rest of his belongings in a suitcase beneath his arm. “Goodbye, Sakura,” he muttered. “Goodbye, Sakura.” Sasori stood still for a split second, as if he didn’t want to leave, but shut the door behind him before she could rise from his bed.

Sasori would have left without kissing her if she hadn’t looked so annoyed at the lamp and at the early morning. She wonders if Sasori ever looks back at that moment -- probably not. But no matter how angry Sakura might feel, no matter how frustrated at the distance, that memory glows warmly in her heart. They had both known it would be the last time they would see each other; that’s why it must have felt so tender.

Their last weekend together in Konoha was a good one.

On some days, Sakura feels more heartbroken than others. She peers into her blackened heart for forgiveness, watching its fragments pulsating painfully in disarray. When the sunlight hits her iris at the right angle at the right time of day, or highlights the red undertones of her hair, she sees the simulacra again; the pockets of what they left. “Expecting?” Sakura answers the phone, thanking Naruto for the invitation; but to her, the ceiling hasn’t stopped spinning.

Boruto is the spitting image of his father as a child, and Inojin of his mother. Hinata informs her she prays at the shrine every day for a girl, and that Boruto sometimes reads bedtime stories out loud for the two of them.

“Why not arrange a nice, presidential birthing suite for Hinata?” Ino clucks, holding both her hand and Sakura’s to Hinata’s belly. The child kicks, so full of life; the vibration makes Sakura’s heart stutter. 

“Yes,” Sakura agrees, the corners of her mouth perking up scandalously, “I’m sure we can manage that. Only the best for Hokage-sama’s wife.” She winks at the dark-haired woman, who giggles in response. 

From the porch of the main family house, Sakura watches the surface of the lake, now frozen over. “Do you bring gifts?” she teases the familiar figure who appears behind her.

“No gifts,” the raven-haired man says, standing close enough that she can feel the warmth of his body, “just congratulations for Konoha’s new Chief of Surgery.” 

“Sasuke-kun,” the doctor greets, turning, “I was hoping it’d be tea, again.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Are you headed out?” Emboldened, Sakura takes his hand in hers and places it in her coat pocket. “Open for a pit stop?”

With his free hand, Sasuke’s index finger graces the center of her forehead as he pushes her growing bangs out of her face. “Is that what career women are calling a date now?”

“No, we call them dates,” the surgeon replies easily. “So, are you open for a date?”

The Uchiha lets out a shaky chuckle. “Do you have the time?”

“Of course,” Sakura tells him, watching the sun set over the snow-covered peaks of Konoha, and feeling the wad of their gloved hands in her pocket. She knows now certain unshakable facts: that the earth does not stop spinning; that the sun rises in the east; that the fisherman wharf closes each season, but returns on the first day of spring. “There’s more to life than medicine, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sasori calls Sakura "Christmas cake," popular Japanese slang in the 1970s for a woman past the age for marriage.


End file.
